Port Gamble S’Klallam complete new fish hatchery facility at Point Julia
POINT JULIA — Greg Donaldson fishes a lot. When the fisherman from the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe comes home on the water in a boat, he can see the newly-built Coast-Salish style salmon hatchery and shelter sitting at the shore of Point Julia. When the sun sets, the yellowish glow of light illuminating the building makes it incredible.
And the fisherman knows he's home.
"It's easier to see," Donaldson said. "It's beautiful," his partner, Lisa DeCoteau added. The couple lives on the hills not far from the hatchery. They'd seen the facility being built piece by piece for months.
"We're blessed," DeCoteau said while the couple cleaned a salmon on a stainless steel table at the shelter on Tuesday.
After years of planning, designing and construction, the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe completed its new fish hatchery and multi-purpose shelter at Point Julia this month.
The two-story hatchery, consisting of four office rooms, a conference room, a garage and an egg room, and the shelter, which has some picnic tables, stainless steel tables and trash cans, will benefit the tribe's over 160 commercial fishermen as well as all the families on the reservation who fish or harvest shellfish for subsistence, celebrations, or other traditional use.
As the building is completed — following 14 months of construction since last June — the tribe's three hatchery staff members will move into the new office space soon, said Abigail Welch, the program manager of PGST's planning department.
Besides fishery activities, tribal members can also use the facility for community gatherings or other events.
"We basically rebuilt the hatchery building but with growth in mind," Welch said.
New facility increases egg hatching rates, features Coast Salish art
The new hatchery was built at the same location as the original hatchery, so that the footprint can be limited to previous constructions and the tribe can minimize the project's impact on the environment and on the land that was PGST's traditional village site, Welch said.
The hatchery facilities in the egg room on the first floor, which are six Kitoi Box incubators and eight stacks of egg trays, remain the same. So does the Little Boston Hatchery's goal to raise over one million chum salmon eggs per season, according to Welch.
The difference is that a drum filter is installed in the new building which will help increase the egg hatching rates, Welch said.
The new structure also includes automated water quality monitoring equipment and an emergency call to the hatchery staff if water flow decreases, Welch said.
Designed by PGST artist Jimmy Price, the building's enclosed porch was decorated with Coast Salish art. The illuminated salmon artwork is visible to the tribal members coming down from the hill at night.
Before the construction, the Little Boston Hatchery, built in 1977 next to the Little Boston Creek on Port Gamble Bay and operated by the tribe, was in need of renovation.
"It was a garage and then they had three people stuffed in the corner of this space," Welch described. "The floor was like getting soft and breaking through, and the roofing needs to be replaced."
The project was supported both by federal funding and the tribe.
The hatchery and shelter facility cost $4.58 million in total. About half of the expense, or $2.27 million, was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Disaster Assistance grant awarded to the tribe in 2019. PGST paid for the other half of the money, which is about $2.31 million, according to the tribe.
The hatchery and beach shelter are used only for the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe.
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: PGST's new salmon hatchery, shelter complete at Point Julia
