Fisheries Service Won't Fish Washington's Hanford Reach for Chinook Story-Date: 04:59 p.m. PST Friday , September 12, 1997 Fisheries Service Won't Fish Washington's Hanford Reach for Chinook BY MIKE LEE, TRI-CITY HERALD, KENNEWICK, WASH. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Sep. 12--Many Mid-Columbians breathed easy Tuesday as the National Marine Fisheries Service abandoned its plan to fish Columbia River chinook with drift nets on the Hanford Reach. Politicians praised the move, but no one cheered as loud as recreational anglers. ``I said a bunch of 'Yahoos!' and jumped up and down,'' said Dana Mueller, an avid Reach fisherman, when he heard Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., stopped the test fishery before it started. The federal fisheries agency announced late last week that it would place nets across the middle of the river near Ringold for about 10 days, starting today or Thursday. Agency spokesman Brian Gorman said the test fishery was designed to see if the Reach could support commercial fishing. By shifting some commercial chinook harvest from the lower Columbia to the Reach, fishery managers hoped to reduce the take of endangered Snake River chinook. But Gorman said the agency didn't expect the violent reception the plan got in the Mid-Columbia. ``I think the depth of the disappointment on the part of sport fishermen took us a bit by surprise.'' Ben Floyd, Benton County's manager of Reach issues, agreed the test fishery should be stopped. ``We're happy to see they are not proceeding,'' he said. ``This thing needs to be put on hold until we find out what it really means, and then at that point, you make an informed decision.'' The public meeting scheduled by Benton County commissioners for tonight was canceled. But commissioners will continue to investigate how the proposed test fishery almost started with little public awareness. Benton County Commissioner Claude Oliver said the incident underscores the need for a federal-state-county partnership to govern the Reach. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., introduced a bill in Congress this year that would create such a commission. Murray has proposed putting the Reach under control of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a national Wild and Scenic River. ``It does not bode well in terms of federal control. This just gives us a sense of frustration that federal agencies are not in concert with one another,'' said Oliver of the test fishery plan. But what really bugged anglers like Mueller was that the fisheries service didn't do much to advertise its plans. ``What they are doing may be sound from a biological standpoint, but the way it was presented was shocking to a lot of us. It took us all by surprise.'' Fisheries service biologist Peter Dygert said the test fishery would not be tried again this year. ``If we decide to pursue this again at another time ... we'd probably do a better job of contacting those folks (in the Mid-Columbia) and running through a bit of a public education process.'' He said the uproar over the test fishery was due in part to people not understanding what the fisheries service was doing. Floyd said he warned the fisheries service if the plan resurfaces it will meet opposition in the Tri-Cities. Still, said Gorman, the fisheries service is obligated to continue seeking more opportunities for fishers as increasing numbers of fish are restricted by federal endangered species listings. ``We can't just list (fish) on the one hand and ignore the consequences of restricting those resources,'' he said. ``We have to look for new ways to use restricted resources or find new resources.'' ----- Visit the Tri-City Herald on the World Wide Web at http://www.tri-cityherald.com/ ----- (c) 1997, Tri-City Herald, Kennewick, Wash. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News. ------------------------------------------------------------