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Company Work Parties at the Hatchery
Spring Work Partys at the Hatchery
Does your group, team or company have a day of giving? Consider a habitat restoration or invasive plant removal morning at the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery. Our grounds can always use help with maintenance and plant removal. To schedule a work party: fill out a form
Book a Spring Hatchery Guided Tour
Book a Spring Tour
We are delighted to be able to hold Winter/Spring guided tours starting the week of February 2 through May 30 — three whole months of tours!
Tours last 45 minutes and feature many of the hatcheries educational spots, are $10 a person as a donation to FISH and should be booked, at least 2 weeks before your desired tour date. To book, please contact us. School Tours ($5 per person) can be scheduled at least 2 weeks before the tour date.
Steve Bell: Forging FISHy Alliances
In 1992, as the State of Washington listed the Issaquah Salmon hatchery for closure, no one expected a community uprising of outrage. The sudden threat brought together a coalition of diverse people and interests, from real estate developers to environmentalists – factions accustomed to waging policy battles with one another rather than pitching for the same team. In the 5th Legislative District encompassing Issaquah, the Democratic senator and two Republican representatives agreed on very little, until the hatchery brought them together with a common cause.
“It is very rare that almost everyone in a community is sharing the same vision,” remembered Steve Bell, one of the founders and the first executive director of the non-profit Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery. “FISH was the opposite of polarization.”
Bell already had experience with public engagement through his service on the Issaquah Library Board, working on the effort to build a new King County Library in Issaquah, which now sits across Sunset Way from the hatchery. And then came four years of service on the Issaquah City Council, working on land use and groundwater issues and intergovernmental relations. Although the population of the town was less than 10,000, “Issaquah was always in a whirlwind of regional activities,” thanks to traffic woes in its crossroads location, Bell said. “It had big-city problems with a small-city budget.”
He already visited the hatchery often, thanks to its central location two blocks from City Hall and just a half-mile from his home. “I was fascinated by the salmon run,” Bell said. “It made Issaquah special and different.”
It also was the most-visited hatchery in the state, open to the public year-round, and the center of the annual Issaquah Salmon Days Festival. That’s why it came as a “total shock” when the state announced the impending closure of the hatchery due to budget cuts.
The dismay was immediate and galvanizing throughout the city, Bell said. The news was “like the evil lightning bolt with the stench of sulfur that came from Olympia,” and it felt “almost like Shakespearean betrayal.”
Along with city and county officials, business leaders, teachers and students, Bell jumped right into the letter-writing and testimony that eventually got a reprieve for the hatchery and funding for another year. That gave time to come up with a plan. By the summer of 1993, FISH was incorporated and the first board members were generating a multitude of ideas for sustaining the hatchery. But most of the board members were busy civic leaders who didn’t have time to track down funding sources or to fish for sponsors. Bell did have time, and he volunteered to take the lead on the efforts, putting his public service experience to work.
He admitted he had no experience with private fund-raising or with putting together the kind of coalition needed to turn around a state government bent on budget cuts. “But I knew there was all this positive energy,” and that inspired him to try something that hadn’t been done before with a hatchery in Washington. He pointed out that “the city was a little crazy about salmon. The Chamber of Commerce’s Salmon Days office had been doing wonderful, fun things for years celebrating the salmon – the Salmonchanted Evening dance, information volunteers call Salmbassadors. It was endlessly creative.”
Now retired and living in Arizona, Bell spoke by phone and reminisced about meeting with state lawmakers about how to add education to the core fish propagation mission, and by so doing, persuade the state to create a partnership unlike any other in Washington. Sen. Kathleen Drew pushed the concept of getting a commitment for matching funds, because “legislators wanted to be able to pitch this to their colleagues,” Bell said. He worked with city officials on a plan to commit up to $500,000 of city matching funds to badly needed renovations at the hatchery.
“The match was the big thing, and the council got widespread acceptance for that rather extraordinary allocation,” Bell said. “That was a risk for the councilmembers,” including hatchery champions Harris Atkins and Ava Frisinger. “They had to justify it.”
Next, he had many discussions with state Reps. Brian Thomas and Phil Dyer about the political process, and they outlined the “absolutely critical” importance of developing a facilities master plan, including cost estimates and timeline. They were able to get state funds allocated for the first part of a three-phase remodeling plan. Sen. Dino Rossi shepherded the final phase with a $3 million budget.
Eventually, the city and the county contributed funding to FISH to hire staff, and Bell was among at least 10 applicants for the executive director job. The board kept him on, and Bell quickly built a relationship with the Department of Fish and Wildlife staff.
“They (DFW) got religion about this working-with-the-community thing,” which was saving their facility and demonstrating how they were working with the community in a new way, Bell noted. They made space for him to move a desk into their hatchery office. But the busy office was not an ideal place to curry the favor of sponsors and donors, so FISH was granted the use of a fertilizer storage room in the hatchery garage. Bell had a desk and a phone and a portable space heater in the unheated room the size of a walk-in closet. Nonetheless, he said he was happy to have an office at all.
It was on the hatchery footbridge over the creek one day that Bell happened to meet Muckleshoot Tribe fish biologist Mike Mahovlich, who was watching the returning adult salmon. They quickly realized they had a shared interest in saving the hatchery, for education as well as fish production. “They have deep cultural reasons to try to maintain their fisheries,” Bell pointed out.
His efforts sent hundreds of letters to the governor from local officials, businesses, civic organizations such as Kiwanis, school district administrators, teachers and tribal officials. Most convincing, he said, were the letters and drawings from students, thanking FISH volunteers for teaching them about salmon and environmental conservation.
In his nine years leading FISH, Bell is proud of his work to incorporate educational exhibits on the hatchery grounds, as well as some unique art that is used for teaching. A giant mural depicting salmon predators and spawning now covers the curved walls of the water tower, designed and painted by local muralist Larry Kangas. In front of the incubation building is a pair of the most-photographed coho salmon in the state – the 8-foot-long bronze statues dubbed “Gilda and Finley.” The realistic sculptures were created by Chimacum artist Tom Jay, who also built an entire stream environment of plants, rocks, logs and gravel around the installation. Bell suggested the sculpture also could serve as a donation collection station, similar to Rachel the Pig at Pike Place Market. Jay agreed and installed a coin slot next to Finley’s dorsal fin. The cash, sometimes damp and moldy, poured in.
But even more than the thousands of dollars he raised and the political will that he fostered, Bell treasures the memories of students learning about salmon and their habitat – up close and personal. One day, he heard a tour of students screaming when a huge chinook salmon jumped out of the holding pond. Bell jumped into action, literally saving the salmon by wrestling the squirming fish back into the water. The kids cheered and Bell was a hero – at least for a moment.
“Yes, it was complicated at times,” said Bell, who moved to Portland and new challenges in 2002 after the hatchery remodel was completed. “But I had so many good people and good vibes and good ideas to work with. Everybody was activated about the project. There was all this positive momentum. Many, many people wanted to be part of something wonderful that was happening right in front of them.”
Guided Hatchery Tours for the Spring
Guided Spring Tours
Hatchery Tours, STEM fairs & more …
We are delighted to be able to hold Winter/Spring guided tours starting the week of February 2 through May 30 — three whole months of tours!
Tours last 45 minutes and feature many of the hatcheries educational spots, are $10 a person as a donation to FISH and should be booked, at least 2 weeks before your desired tour date. To book, please contact us. School Tours ($5 per person) can be scheduled at least 2 weeks before the tour date.
FISH would love to be a part of your school’s science fair or community event!
We welcome the opportunity to share our fascination about salmon with the public. A FISH staff member will bring a salmon to dissect to show the internal anatomy of a salmon. We will also provide several hands-on display items, for students and families to investigate. Fill out the form here.
Here’s to a great year full of cool, flowing water, eggs, alevins, frys, fingerlings, smolts and returning adults! Keep ’em coming home!
Please use the following form to reserve your tour: https://form.jotform.com/52535954158968
Newest Staff Member at FISH!
Celebrate Earth Day at the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery
All are invited to join Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery (FISH) to celebrate Earth Day weekend with our juvenile Chinook salmon before they are released in May to begin their miraculous journey. The educational and fun packed event will take place from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 20 at the hatchery, located at the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery, 125 W. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA.
Tour the native plant garden, feed the rainbow trout and try your hand at salmon-themed arts and crafts projects. View the 4.5 million chinook smolts in the hatchery rearing ponds (raceways) and get answers to all your questions. Children and adults alike are invited to write a good-luck letter to the juvenile salmon before they are released into the wild, where they face many dangers such as predation and pollution. Visitors can even help with hands-on habitat restoration projects.
FISH also will share demonstrations and information about summer science camps for students, year-round guided tours and in-class education programs. Special hands-on exhibits will showcase ways that everyone can help salmon and the environment, such as biking instead of driving, reducing fossil fuel use with electric vehicles, and cleaning the streets with City of Issaquah vehicles. Local artists will set up a marketplace in the Watershed Science Center.
Visitors can take home their own Spring themed treasures from the FISHop gift shop, which usually is open only on summer and fall weekends. For this occasion, the shop will be stocked with pieces by local artists and special spring items such as mason bee kits.
With a commitment to environmental education and ensuring our salmon return for future generations, FISH is celebrating it’s 30th anniversary, with expanded educational programs, events and opportunities to learn about the local heritage, culture and state of salmon recovery at the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery. The Earth Day weekend event is free to all, but donations to support FISH’s education programs are welcome. Support the Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery (issaquahfish.org)
Celebrate Earth Day at the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery
Celebrate Earth Day weekend at the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery
Celebrate Earth Day at the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery
All are invited to join Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery (FISH) to celebrate Earth Day weekend with our juvenile Chinook salmon before they are released in May to begin their miraculous journey. The educational and fun packed event will take place from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 20 at the hatchery, located at the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery, 125 W. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA.
Tour the native plant garden, feed the rainbow trout and try your hand at salmon-themed arts and crafts projects. View the 4.5 million chinook smolts in the hatchery rearing ponds (raceways) and get answers to all your questions. Children and adults alike are invited to write a good-luck letter to the juvenile salmon before they are released into the wild, where they face many dangers such as predation and pollution. Visitors can even help with hands-on habitat restoration projects.
FISH also will share demonstrations and information about summer science camps for students, year-round guided tours and in-class education programs. Special hands-on exhibits will showcase ways that everyone can help salmon and the environment, such as biking instead of driving, reducing fossil fuel use with electric vehicles, and cleaning the streets with City of Issaquah vehicles. Local artists will set up a marketplace in the Watershed Science Center.
Visitors can take home their own Spring themed treasures from the FISHop gift shop, which usually is open only on summer and fall weekends. For this occasion, the shop will be stocked with pieces by local artists and special spring items such as mason bee kits.
With a commitment to environmental education and ensuring our salmon return for future generations, FISH is celebrating it’s 30th anniversary, with expanded educational programs, events and opportunities to learn about the local heritage, culture and state of salmon recovery at the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery. The Earth Day weekend event is free to all, but donations to support FISH’s education programs are welcome. Support the Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery (issaquahfish.org)
Celebrate Earth Day at the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery
The science of salmon is more than a job for Mike Mahovlich
The science of salmon is more than a job for Mike Mahovlich
Just two years into his new job in fisheries management with the Muckleshoot Tribe, Mike Mahovlich got a desperate phone call. It was Steve Bell from Issaquah on the line. News had just broken that the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife planned to close the historic Issaquah Salmon Hatchery. City officials, Chamber of Commerce members, students and citizen volunteers were mobilizing to save the hatchery. Would Mahovlich and the Tribe be able to help?
Immediately, Mahovlich realized the stakes involved. Without the Issaquah hatchery supporting survival of chinook and coho stocks in the Lake Washington basin, the runs would likely decline and disappear within a few years. By 1992, evidence of the environmental damage created by urban development was showing up in local waters.
“Especially in the Lake Washington watershed, we started to see things crashing with the sockeye run,” Mahovlich remembered. “At the same time, the state was giving up on the Issaquah hatchery.”
Now serving as assistant director of harvest management for the Muckleshoot Tribe, Mahovlich remembered those years in the early 1990s as the Tribe’s fisheries work expanded following the Boldt decision assuring tribal treaty rights to half of the harvestable fish runs. Tribal operations were very small then, but he started projects such as fry trapping in the Cedar River to assess survival rates as well as expanding the hand-counting of returning adult salmon at the Ballard Locks. Among all of the non-native predation, warm water conditions and pollution, the proposed closure of the Issaquah hatchery was a new threat to the Northwest’s iconic fish.
“You never walk away when things are bad; you do the exact opposite and dig your heels in,” Mahovlich said. “The Issaquah hatchery is the heart and soul of the chinook and coho runs for the whole Lake Washington basin.”
He jumped right into the Issaquah community effort to save the hatchery. “We had just a small group, but I knew I could get the Tribe involved at the policy level including a strong lobbying effort approved by the council,“ he said. With treaty rights to harvesting salmon throughout its historical fishing grounds, the Muckleshoot Tribe serves as a co-manager of the salmon runs and has a great interest in their survival.
“We told the state early on not only that the hatchery was not going away, but we were going to rebuild it better than ever for the salmon, both adults and juveniles, along with a very strong educational program, which hadn’t been done at any state facility. I got right into the middle and came up with the master plan in phases.”
Those phases – starting with replacing the migration-blocking weir, followed by a new fish ladder and holding ponds, then rearing ponds and a watershed science center – helped convince the state to maintain and rebuild the community and regional resource in Issaquah.
“The final powerful message that was being carried (to Olympia) was the need to start educating the public,” Mahovlich said. “That was a huge missing link at state hatcheries.” Because of Issaquah’s close proximity to a major urban area and its easy access in the middle of old town a short distance from I-5, the Issaquah hatchery was promoted as the best place in the state for public outreach about salmon and habitat conservation.
“It’s an investment into the next seven generations,” Mahovlich said, referring to the Native philosophy of managing natural resources so that descendants seven generations away will still benefit from the same environment. “We need to be not so short-sighted. The salmon habitat is not coming back.”
He said he believes that people can learn to live alongside fish while mitigating the habitat damage done by urban development.
“How do we make sure the cities embrace it? How do we keep the fish alive for the next seven generations?” he wondered. The rebuilt hatchery, combining fish culture with education, was the answer. “There should be sustainable, harvestable fish for everyone. You have to work with what you got in hand, and that is not much when it comes to salmon standards in this urban concrete jungle of a watershed. You can’t go to Target and buy a new watershed.”
As the hatchery promotion efforts heated up, Mahovlich moved from Seattle to Issaquah and joined the board of the newly formed Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery. For years, he helped steer the new non-profit agency as it developed education programs and solicited grants and donations. He trained volunteer recruits to interpret the salmon story and explain their biology, lifecycle and habitat needs to the many thousands of visitors arriving at the hatchery to view the annual migration spectacle.
“What I am most proud of when it comes to the education side of the hatchery is that the final rebuilding master plan incorporated my idea of putting in glass walls so all visitors could get race to face and inches away from these magnificent adult salmon,” Mahovlich said. “This is a learning experience for everyone young and old to enjoy.”
His passion for fish started very early in life, growing up in Coquitlam, B.C. and fishing for trout in his backyard stream. As a teenager, he turned to athletics and earned a scholarship to the University of Washington in track and field, where he threw the javelin. His prowess in the sport even earned him two trips to the Olympics with the Canadian team, and he continued to compete, working through an Achilles tendon injury, retiring in 1990 after the Commonwealth Games in Aukland, New Zealand.
After college, he returned to Canada and worked with the Pacific Salmon Commission and Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Vancouver, B.C. Eventually, he applied for a job with the Washington Department of Wildlife (before it merged with Fisheries). He was offered a volunteer position. Disappointed, he continued looking, and two weeks later, in the autumn of 1990, saw the posting for the Muckleshoot job. As he prepared to go in for his interview, he saw one of his college professors walk out ahead of him, and once again was prepared to be disappointed. Instead, he ended up as the 77th employee hired by the Tribe.
Thirty-four years later, he’s constantly called upon to develop policies and strategies in the ongoing efforts to save struggling salmon populations. As threatened Puget Sound chinook were experiencing pre-spawn mortality and not making it through the lakes and rivers to their spawning grounds, Mahovlich devised an experiment that transferred a few adult chinook from the Locks where they entered fresh water directly to the Issaquah hatchery. It worked.
Encouraged by the success, he proposed to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) extending it to the decimated sockeye run. In June of 2021, as Seattle experienced a heat dome and record high temperatures above 100 degrees, the co-managers started the transfer by dip-netting live sockeye at the Ballard locks fish ladder, placing them in a live tank on a boat, then hauling them to a Port of Seattle landing station. The fish then were loaded in truck tanks to drive to the Cedar River hatchery at Landsburg. They devised three different acclimation processes during the six-hour trip to help the fish adapt to the varying water temperatures.
Over the past three summers, the program moved more than 3,000 sockeye without one enroute mortality. All the fish made it to the hatchery safely and ripened in holding ponds over the next four months, finishing their life cycle with a very high spawning success rate. Now known as BLAST (Ballards Locks Adult Sockeye Transfer), the program has given the co-managers hope that the Tribe and local residents will again enjoy sockeye fisheries in Lake Washington where, a few years ago, it looked like extinction was likely to happen in the very near future.
Thanks to his work on partnerships with the Tribe, WDFW and non-profit organizations, other projects are making progress on protecting the Lake Sammamish kokanee as well as Cedar River sockeye through extended rearing of fry at the Issaquah hatchery and reducing non-native predators such as bass and perch. He pointed out that the importance of the work at the Issaquah hatchery extends well beyond the community and the watershed, because so many people and species depend on hatchery origin salmon, such as the Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) or orca populations – the J, K and L pods – which prefer the large chinook salmon for food.
Mahovlich still mourns the loss of the steelhead run in the Lake Washington basin, which includes Lake Sammamish and the Issaquah Creek watershed. The Issaquah hatchery at one time raised steelhead to release into the watershed, but eventually, federally protected sea lions cornered the returning fish in tight quarters as they entered the fish ladder at the Ballard Locks, and ate most of them.
“I don’t want to lose another species on my watch,” he said.
Hatchery Tours, STEM fairs & more …
We are delighted to be able to hold Winter/Spring guided tours starting the week of February 2 through May 30 — three whole months of tours!
Tours last 45 minutes and feature many of the hatcheries educational spots, are $10 a person as a donation to FISH and should be booked, at least 2 weeks before your desired tour date. To book, please contact us. School Tours ($5 per person) can be scheduled at least 2 weeks before the tour date.
FISH would love to be a part of your school’s science fair or community event!
We welcome the opportunity to share our fascination about salmon with the public. A FISH staff member will bring a salmon to dissect to show the internal anatomy of a salmon. We will also provide several hands-on display items, for students and families to investigate. Fill out the form here.
Here’s to a great year full of cool, flowing water, eggs, alevins, frys, fingerlings, smolts and returning adults! Keep ’em coming home!
Saving the Hatchery Around the Corner
2024 Summer Camp Registration is open!
Summer Science Camp Registration Open!
Summer Science Camps are back for 2024! FISH is offering three weeks of outdoor, fun-filled, learning and discovery. The week long camps include microscopes, stream walks & other activites. Spots are limited. Discounts for FISH members, siblings & 2023 attendees.
Little Fry (3-5 years old) – July 8-12 – Register here
Little Fry campers find out the answers to “Where do salmon live? And who lives near the salmon?” Campers will also explore the salmon hatchery and Issaquah Creek, create an animal track to take home, become a salmon, act like a bug, and sing the songs of water. This camp will encourage the joy of discovery and cultivate a sense of wonder in the environment and in salmon.
Science Camp (6-8 years old) – July 15-19 – Register here
Campers will have outdoor fun learning all about the salmon life cycle & watershed stewardship as they conduct a water quality and aquatic insect study of Issaquah Creek, perform experiments, hike through nature, create arts and crafts, play educational games, use microscopes, and more!
Science Camp (9-11 years old) – July 22-26 – Register here
Brodie Antipa: Promoting Partnerships
Brodie Antipa: Promoting Partnerships
By Grace Reamer
As the Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery celebrates its 30th anniversary, we are taking a look back at the people and the activities that brought about the formation and development of this unique organization and partnership.
The Issaquah Salmon Hatchery didn’t have much to recommend itself back in 1995, when Brodie Antipa first arrived. The aging incubation building needed a new roof and new equipment, and the old asphalt holding ponds were inefficient and difficult to manage adult spawning salmon.
“It was quite a bit more sterile than it is now,” with no signage or art or gardens or educational exhibits, Antipa said. “It was kind of dark and dreary.”
But change was starting. The old wooden weir – the fish passage barrier across Issaquah Creek – had just been replaced with a high-tech variable-height weir, thanks to matching funding from the City of Issaquah and the State of Washington. After it was threatened with closure, the hatchery was rescued through a community-wide lobbying effort to rebuild the facility as an education center. The first phase of the transformation had begun, and Antipa had been hand-picked to manage the hatchery and shepherd the next phases of the remodeling project.
“Mike Lewis had just left (as hatchery manager), and they knew what an important position it was,” with the new mission of the hatchery to deliver an environmental conservation message, Antipa said. “I knew how important it was going into it, and I knew that failure wasn’t an option. It didn’t take me long to realize that the hatchery was unique in many ways.”
At just 25 years old, Antipa was the new blood that the state Department of Fish and Wildlife sought to breathe new life into the 60-year-old hatchery. He practically grew up in the Fisheries Department, following the lead of his father, a state fisheries pathologist with a doctorate from the University of Washington.
Growing up in the Seattle and Olympia areas, “I always loved to be outside fishing and working with the fish,” Antipa remembered. Just like his father, he completed his fisheries degree at the UW, and immediately went to work as a biologist at the Cedar River Hatchery, where DFW’s sockeye program was just getting started. In fact, he continued his sockeye work on the Cedar part-time while managing the Issaquah hatchery.
He remembered being awe-struck by the huge support network he found surrounding the Issaquah hatchery – with city officials, state politicians, businesses, the Muckleshoot Tribe, non-profit organizations and community volunteers all working together to save and promote the hatchery.
“I don’t think of any other time in my career when I’ve seen such a collaboration,” Antipa said. “The volunteers were so awesome back then – a lot of laughter and a lot of smiles. We simply couldn’t do it at Issaquah without volunteers.”
He has fond memories of the volunteer business owners mobilized by Chamber of Commerce Director Suzanne Suther to plant flowers and spruce up garden beds at the hatchery. Issaquah Salmon Days Festival Director Robin Kelley always helped him get the hatchery ready for the annual festival that hosted up to 200,000 people on the first weekend in October.
He also credits Steve Bell, founder and first executive director of the non-profit Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery, for mentoring him, lobbying for grants and funding, and coordinating exhibit installations as well as the educational programming. Antipa learned to focus on the partnerships and the team effort that would make the hatchery and its messaging so successful, he said.
“We’ve known for a long time that hatcheries are necessary if you want to have cities and urban development,” Antipa said. But the state didn’t have a way to share that message with the public, until the proposal to use the Issaquah hatchery for outreach about environmental stewardship. “It was a real wake-up call for the department. Society has traded the habitat for development, and that’s the story that the hatchery can tell. Issaquah was really the first place to do it that I’m aware of in Washington.”
But it was a challenge. In the economic downturn of the mid-1990s, it wasn’t easy to justify the $6.5 million that the state eventually dedicated to three phases of redevelopment at the hatchery. The partnerships that Antipa and Bell cultivated kept the project moving forward, replacing the underground fish ladder with a longer ladder and underwater viewing windows. The old shallow holding ponds, where volunteers waded into the water with big nets to corral fish for harvesting eggs, were replaced with deeper ponds and automated crowders that improved fish survival. A new pedestrian bridge, twice as wide, was dropped into place by crane over Issaquah Creek, and new coho rearing ponds were dug on the south side. Best of all was the remodel of the historic incubation building, with its long row of windows and high-pitched roof, which got new equipment and roofing while maintaining the original appearance of the building.
“These old hatchery buildings just have a certain character that you can’t replace with a metal building,” Antipa said. “You almost feel a spirit within the building.”
In his nearly five years at the Issaquah hatchery, Antipa worked with the city on a partnership with the Darigold plant a few blocks away. That effort resulted in the installation of a waterline carrying pure well water that Darigold used to chill its butter to the hatchery, instead of just dumping it in the creek. At the hatchery, that pure water is mixed with creek water and used to incubate millions of salmon eggs, reducing the amount of sediment and pollutants bathing the incubation trays.
In 2000, Antipa was promoted to the complex management position for the Lake Washington drainage area, and then went on to serve as a hatchery reform coordinator. He’s now moved up to hatchery operations manager for all the facilities from Tokul Creek in Fall City down through the Green River system, where he works on reform efforts and changing policies based on new biological opinions and science.
So in 2020, it was Antipa who Kelley called in her new capacity as FISH’s executive director when the pandemic shut down public access to the hatchery. Because of the need for 24-hour on-call status for the three-person staff, complete closure was deemed necessary to reduce the risk of life-threatening illness. But Kelley proposed limited tours of small groups, with masking required, to meet the huge demand for safer, outdoor activities.
“This is going to be a hard sell,” Antipa told her. But his previous experience with the FISH organization assured him that they could do it safely, and he eventually got state permission for the tour program. “It took some time,” he said, “but Issaquah was then the only place in the state giving tours, and that was because of FISH.”
When he arrived nearly 30 years ago, FISH had a small core of volunteers helping with spawning and leading tours for students in the fall. Since then, with DFW support, FISH education programs have expanded to year-round, including spring science fairs and summer camps and a gift shop, along with a roster of more than 100 volunteers.
“I think there’s a huge value in what FISH has done to tell the story of salmon to the masses, to the people who wouldn’t normally hear it,” especially in how students learn about the links between salmon and their environment, Antipa said. “FISH is filling a niche and creating that value that wasn’t here before. You think about the magnitude and the number of people who have got exposure at the hatchery – it’s monumental. We can’t put a price on that.”
“6PPD-quinone update: The most Toxic Chemical ever seen in the Aquatic Environment
6PPD-quinone (6PPD-Q) update
A chemical found in vehicle tires kills coho salmon and other fish has come under intense worldwide investigation ever since reseachers in the Puget Sound isolated the singular compound three years ago. The chemical 6PPD-quinone (6PPD-Q) was virtually unknow until its isolation in 2020 and is now recognized as one of the most toxic chemicals ever seen in the aquatic environment. Full Article
How you can help:
There is a bill in front of the Washington State legislature that would require tire manufacturers to rapidly implement a safe replacement for 6PPD, the preservative in tires that then becomes 6PPD-Q. You can easily comment on the bill at SB 5931. Help save our very own coho!