Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Hatcheries cash not in budget
State fishing interests hoping to catch a $1.55 million break
The north-central area of Arkansas known as the Trout Capital of the World will lose the federal hatcheries that replenish the tourist-drawing trout unless the hatcheries’ $1.55 million funding is restored.
“Eliminating completely the rearing of trout at those facilities is not an option for us,” Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Deputy Director Mike Armstrong said. “If those fisheries shut down, trout fishing in Arkansas would end. All trout in Arkansas originate in these two hatcheries.”
Trout fishing means hundreds of millions of dollars in tourism and taxes to the region, which isn’t known for any other major industry, a fact that has people there scared of what could happen if the federal government doesn’t replace the $1.55 million needed to run the hatcheries.
The $3.8 trillion federal budget proposal for 2013 for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service includes no money for the Greers Ferry National Fish Hatchery and the Norfork National Fish Hatchery, along with seven other federal mitigation hatcheries in other states. Such hatcheries exist to mitigate the effects federal dams built to generate
electricity have had on wildlife and local economies.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has tried for years to get the three federal agencies responsible for the dams — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Bureau of Reclamation — to reimburse it for running the hatcheries. The wildlife service argues that the agencies that caused the problem should pay for the solution.
Since 1957, the Norfork National Fish Hatchery has produced trout to restock the tail-waters primarily below Norfork and Bull Shoals dams. Congress established the hatchery in 1955 to replace native warm- water sport fisheries in the White and North Fork rivers that were lost with the construction of Bull Shoals and Norfork dams. The hatchery raises rainbow, brown and cutthroat trout, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. The dams were built by the Corps of Engineers.
“After the dam was built, we were kind of lost. They took our resource and made it a lake, which is a good thing, and of course the lake became a good fishery in itself, and then the federal government, to replace the fisheries, put trout in,” state Rep. Kelley Linck, R-flippin, said. “No other species of fish could live in there, but they found trout to be perfect. It’s like we took fantastic fisheries, added cold water, added trout, and next thing you know we’re catching literally world-record fish out of the thing.”
According to the Fish and Wildlife website, the Norfork hatchery produces 500,000 pounds of fish a year. The hatchery stocks more than 1.5 million trout annually, according to the website. It had a budget of $952,000 in 2010, according to the website.
For every $1 spent from it’s operating budget, the Norfork hatchery produces $ 95 for the local economy, according to the website. The hatchery has an annual regional impact of $90.4 million, website estimates say.
The Greers Ferry Hatchery, established in 1965, had a budget of $606,000 in 2010. It produces rainbow and brook trout to restock the tail-waters below the Greers Ferry Dam. The hatchery produces 785,000 fish a year, or around 205,600 pounds of fish.
For every $1 of its operating budget, $113 is put back into the economy, according to the website. Estimates on the website say that the Greers Ferry hatchery has an annual regional impact of $68.4 million.
Donald Cranor, 45, of Gassville has been a guide on the White River since he was 15 years old. He said he doesn’t know what he would do without the hatcheries.
“It’s 100 percent of my business, what I do relies on those hatcheries. It’s my living,” he said. “It would be devastating. It’s not just me, it’s the gas station and restaurants and the motels and everything around here.”
He said that during his peak season of February and March, he is taking people out fishing seven days a week. He stressed that most guides work year-round.
“If you’re fishing with me, you can expect to catch 30 to 50 fish per person per day,” Cranor said. “It’s the only place I know of where you are guaranteed to catch fish. Nowhere else in the country can say that.”
His website advertises rates ranging from a halfday for two people at $240 to a full day of fly fishing for three people at $525.
According to the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism, the Ozark Mountain region of Baxter, Boone, Marion, Newton and Searcy counties took in an estimated $308 million from tourism in 2011. That includes $18.6 million in state taxes and $6 million in local taxes.
Linck said the region is so dependent on tourists drawn to fishing there that without the fish, “I can’t help but think it would completely collapse north-central Arkansas. It has literally become the center of our economy.”
NOT THE FIRST TIME
Leon Alexander, president of the Friends of the Norfork National Fish Hatchery, said his group learned in January 2011 that funding for the nine mitigation hatcheries was not in the Fish and Wildlife Service’s budget.
He blamed Dan Ashe, the new director of the service.
“He wanted to make a big splash so he removed the funding for these nine mitigation hatcheries,” Alexander said.
State Sen. Johnny Key, R- Mountain Home, introduced a Senate resolution in the 2011 Legislative session asking the president and Congress to continue the funding.
After months of Alexander’s letter writing, calls and a trip to Washington, D.C., Congress on Dec. 15 approved a bill that restored the money, with $ 3.8 million coming from the Corps of Engineers and the rest from the Fish and Wildlife Service.
“This was a long, painful, agonizing situation, back and forth, to get that money back into the budget,” Alexander said. “It was like Christmas came early for the people at the hatchery.”
But when the fiscal 2013 federal budget was released Feb. 13, the funding for the hatcheries was not in it.
“We were euphoric here for less than two months,” Alexander said. “We’re basically having to start over once again to try, through our congressional leaders, to get this money back in.”
The U.S. Department of the Interior asked for $ 3.2 million less for National Fish Hatchery general program activities in fiscal 2013.
The federal fiscal year begins Oct. 1. The total National Fish Hatchery operations budget request was $43.2 million. The Fish and Wildlife Service is a subagency of the Interior Department.
Arkansas’ dams are operated by the Corps of Engineers. In other states, the Tennessee Valley Authority or the Bureau of Reclamation run the dams.
As of Friday, the $ 3.8 trillion federal budget proposal includes $4.3 million from the Corps for the nine mitigation hatcheries and $ 600,000 from the Bureau of Reclamation.
The budgets for the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Tennessee Valley Authority include no funding for the mitigation hatcheries. The fish eggs sent to the mitigation hatcheries originate at the authority. If the authority doesn’t have money to fund the egg production, there will be no trout for Arkansas hatcheries.
In statements made before the U. S. House Committee of Natural Resources’ subcommittee of Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs on March 6, Ashe said, “The service is working to recover costs from the federal agencies that built and operate these water infrastructure projects. The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers is the largest customer for these mitigation fish and negotiations. Service efforts are proceeding to recover the $4.7 million necessary to fund mitigation fish production.”
Alexander said the Friends of the Norfork National Fish Hatchery have resumed the campaign it began last year, asking supporters to call or write Arkansas congressmen. He said at this point the group is waiting to see how Congress will react to the proposed budget, which contains no money for the hatcheries.
“You have to let the process work,” Alexander said. “I realize things take time, government takes time. It’s not as easy as me talking to Sen. [ Mark] Pryor or Sen. [John] Boozman.”
Pryor, a Democrat from Little Rock, was a force in getting the hatcheries’ funding reinstated last year. Spokesman Lisa Ackerman said he and Boozman sent a letter to President Barack Obama asking that the hatcheries be fully funded.
“Not everyone understands the positive impact fish hatcheries have on our economy, but we see it very clearly in Arkansas,” Pryor said in a written statement. “I will fight again to provide an appropriate level of funding to maintain hatcheries, preventing both job and tax revenue loss. It makes good economic sense, even in a time of belt-tightening.”
Ackerman said that in March, Pryor told Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Ashe that he wanted the money replaced.
She said Pryor formally requested that the $7.18 million to fund all of the hatcheries be added back to the Fish and Wildlife Service budget.
“What Sen. Pryor would really like to see is we don’t have to play this game year to year,” she said.
Boozman, a Republican from Rogers, agreed, saying Arkansas is caught in the middle of a larger federal argument.
“What difference does it make that the Corps does it or Fish and Wildlife?” he said. “We feel like Fish and Wildlife should continue the funding. This has worked very, very well for several decades, so there is no reason to change.”
DIDN’T CAUSE THE PROBLEM
Linck said it doesn’t matter who pays as long as the hatcheries stay open.
“We don’t care who funds it. I don’t care if the national Health Department funds it,” Linck said. “For crying out loud, just fund it and let’s find a way where we’re not in this struggle every year.”
Fish and Wildlife spokesman Jeff Fleming said he understands that it’s confusing why the service is asking the Corps to shoulder the financial burden of the hatcheries even when the money all comes from the same place: taxpayers.
“As a taxpayer myself, I totally get that,” Fleming said. “Frankly it should be a simple question with a simple answer. We recognize we’re about fish and wildlife conservation.”
But Fish and Wildlife’s perspective is that it didn’t build the dam that created the need for the hatcheries, Fleming said. And the service was never given authority by Congress to fund the hatcheries but saw a need and did it anyway, he said.
Now that there is a more fiscally conservative atmosphere in Washington, D.C., the agency feels that the agencies, such as the Corps, which built the dams, should pay something to keep the hatcheries running, Fleming said.
“Other agencies’ projects are responsible for the degradation of these fisheries,” he said. “We were sort of the good citizen [who stepped in.] The funding didn’t match up, and we are trying to match it up.”
He said the service is working to negotiate how much other agencies should pay.
“Decisions related to our 2013 budget are far from over,” he said. “We want folks to know that while we are working hard to get in a situation where everybody is helping pay ... we recognize the role these [hatcheries] play in a lot of these communities.”
On May 12, the former chief of Fisheries and Aquatic Conservation for the Fish and Wildlife Service, Stuart Leon, is to speak about the hatchery budget at Gaston’s Resort in Lakeview.
BUT WHAT IF?
Even with trout fishing playing such an important economic role in the region, Linck said, he doubts that the state could step in and keep the hatcheries open.
“Arkansas didn’t build the dam. The federal government built the dam, we didn’t have a choice,” he said. The state Game and Fish Commission doesn’t “have the resources, and we don’t have an alternative.”
Armstrong said the state sold 153,219 trout permits in fiscal 2011. Of those, 97,006 were purchased by Arkansans for $5 and 56,213 were purchased by people from out of state for $ 12. Trout permits alone brought $1.16 million into the state in fiscal 2011.
Fishermen must purchase a fishing license and a trout permit if they want to fish for trout.
Armstrong said the state isn’t considering taking over the hatcheries.
“We see those hatcheries as a federal obligation,” he said. “From the state perspective, we’re saying: Federal government meet your obligation and keep those trout hatcheries fully funded and operational.”