260 



Pic* Peed "6- June 30. 1989 



' o oe depressing fisheries Productivities. It did not appear 

 t K st increasinq rearing habitats uou Id cause population levels 

 to rise to past escapements. Therefore, it j a s requested by 

 '.he State's Habitat Division that the Forest Service 

 s l w i f i can t I y modify the intended work scope to avoid the 

 harmful side effects of exter,s;/e blasting, uhich included 

 potential mortalities to juvenile fishes and the sedimentation 

 of u a r d Creek. In spite of these requests. Forest Service 

 personnel proceeded uith most of the planned agenda, resulting 

 sedimentation into U a r d Creek and no known habitat 

 impr ovemen t • 



Asked uhv thev chose this particular location, uhen virtually 

 manv hundreds ot miles of damaged streamside habitat truly 

 needing enhancement are found on Prince of Wales Island, the 

 response of the acting District Ranger uas very 

 st'-aiqht-foruard and honest. He simply explained that they 

 uanted to spend the money at a location on the Ket Chilean 

 citv road system uhsre they could take visi'ing dignitaries 

 uho had f '. oun into t cun and uere on tight time schedules- 

 Needless to say. the project appeared to be a disaster, and :t 

 seems very doubtful that any visitinq dignitaries uiil ever be 

 escorted to this site so that they can be impressed. 



Houl i no Peg Creek : A couple of years ago. while driving dour 

 the Thome Bay road. I encountered a very large culvert 

 (approximately 8 foot diameter" 1 uhich had recently been 

 installed in good quality cone, spawning haDitat at the time 

 salmon eggs uere incubating in the grave's- As a backnoe had 

 done extensive excavation in the stream to install the culvert, 

 it appeared that virtually all eggs in the stream had lively 

 been suffocated uith heavy deposits of silt for a Jistance of 

 up to a couple of thousand feet dounstream. Due to other types 

 of chronic fisheries problems uhich seemed to exist since my 

 !<58d arrival to Ketchikan, at this time I sent a letter to the 

 Forest Supervisor requesting that ue be informed of each case 

 •j here, in the future: t 1 ) timing for stream crossing 

 installations in fish habitat uas not implemented, <2) fish 

 passage uas blocked, or (3) recommendat i ons maje by Forest 

 Service fisheries biologists conflicted uith decisions 

 ultimately made by District Rangers. Although no responses 

 uere ever received, I do not believe that "no-neus-uas-qoo J- 

 neus • " It uas only after ue stumbled into the Staney Creek and 

 Rush Creek incidents about six months ago that ue began to 

 attempt to focus on these issues once again- 



C ONCLUSION 



I regret that I cannot urite a memo on this subject that is 

 more Positive, but conflicts such as this are only examples in 

 a series of seemingly endless chronic problems that ue have 

 never been able to successfully address. Although a positive 



