ARKANSAS SPORTSMAN

Hatcheries facing serious threat

Like the boy who cried wolf, the federal government’s tiresome threats to close trout hatcheries in Arkansas might finally be serious.

Mark Oliver, chief of fisheries for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, updated the commission on the feds’ latest threats to close the Norfork and Greers Ferry national fish hatcheries on March 19 at the commission’s monthly work meeting.

This started in 1995 when President Clinton and Congress wrangled over budget priorities, and federal fish hatcheries were offered as sacrifices to trim the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service budget. Since then, threats to close the hatcheries have become a semi-annual tradition. We hear the alarms and we yawn.

Oliver acknowledged as much, but this time the alarms sound more urgent, he said. The reason is that in the past six years, the USFWS has been phasing itself out of the hunting and fishing business and concentrating on recovering threatened and endangered species, such as maple leaf mussels.

“There’s been a real shift in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service away from the recreational aspects of hunting and fishing and more to the conservation of other species,” Oliver said. “We’re seeing a radical shift that a lot of states are seeing right now.”

Why?

“Dan Ashe [the USFWS director] has the authority to change priorities,” Oliver said. “The reason he is able do that is that there is no organic act that directs the Fish and Wildlife Service to direct anything for fisheries.”

Consequently, the USFWS gives funding priority to those sorts of projects over traditional projects, like fish hatcheries.

Oliver outlined the feds’ funding priorities in order. No. 1 is recovering federally endangered or threatened species, followed by restoring imperiled aquatic species, establishing tribal partnerships and trust responsibilities, other propagation programs for native species and, finally, other propagation programs for non-native species. That includes non-native sport fisheries, like trout in Arkansas.

“We are No. 5, the lowest priority,” Oliver said.

Even if Arkansas hatcheries survive ensuing budget cuts, they will be affected by cuts elsewhere, Oliver said. For example, the Norfork and Greers Ferry hatcheries use trout eggs that come from hatcheries in Montana and Tennessee.

“They’re all interconnected,” Oliver said. “Waters in Tennessee are from dams constructed by the TVA [Tennessee Valley Authority]. Out west, they might be BLM [Bureau of Land Management]. These are mitigation hatcheries, so they were not going to keep it funded unless they had somebody to reimburse for costs.”

The federal government established the trout hatcheries in Arkansas to mitigate the destruction of warm-water sport fisheries on the White, North Fork and Little Red rivers when those rivers were dammed.

Since those dams are Corps of Engineers projects, the USFWS says the Corps is responsible for their mitigation projects, including hatcheries, Oliver said. He added that in October 2013, Senators Mark Pryor and John Boozman and Representative Rick Crawford persuaded the USFWS to delay closing the Greers Ferry Hatchery by getting the Corps to fund the hatcheries through September 2014. Likewise, the TVA has agreed to fund hatcheries in its domain for three years, after which it will negotiate permanent funding.

“We don’t care who pays for it as long as it’s not us as a state agency,” Oliver said.

Commissioner Emon Mahony said it’s reasonable that the Corps should fund the hatcheries.

“The Corps should live by the rules it forces everyone else to live by,” Mahony said.

The USFWS does not factor the hatcheries’ economic impact into its decisions, Oliver said, despite the fact the Arkansas hatcheries make money. The Norfork hatchery produces 400,000 trout per year, and Oliver said it generates $89 in economic impact for every dollar invested. The Greers Ferry hatchery produces 200,000 trout per year and generates $96 for every dollar invested.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission sells 160,000 trout fishing permits annually, which generates $1.2 million for the agency. Oliver said they generate $4.8 million in federal income taxes and $4.3 million in state and local tax revenue, with a total economic impact of $175 million. Anglers devote 2 million fishing hours per year fishing for trout in Arkansas.

“Economy is not factored into prioritization,” Oliver said.

The math suggests that the AGFC makes enough from trout fishing permits and conservation sales tax revenue generated from trout fishing to run the hatcheries itself. Unfortunately, only one other state - Missouri - has a game and fish agency that is as well-funded as ours. The other 48 states don’t have the money to carry their weight in such an interconnected system.

Sports, Pages 22 on 03/27/2014

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