Fish pens fate soon to be decided

State wildlife authorities will try to help a local group find a way to keep operating the fish-raising pens that release 300,000 fish a year into Banks Lake, but that may come to an end if volunteers aren't found to run them, which has implications for the fishing culture in the area.

"We're going to see what we can do to help them out," said Mike Schmuck, a fish biologist with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife District 5, in Adams and Grant counties. He said they would make an effort to find people to operate the pens.

The net pens are operated by POWER, which stands for Promoters of Wildlife and Environmental Resources, runs the fish pens in Banks Lake in Electric City.

The organization releases 150,000 trout twice a year into Banks Lake from their feeding nets, where the fish are able to grow, safe from predators. After release, some of those trout are eaten by bass, walleye, and burbot, keeping those species thriving.

The fish find their way through Banks Lake, through canals all the way to Billy Clapp Lake. Both local and far-away anglers enjoy hooking them and cooking them.

With many of the members of POWER being older, and unwilling to continue doing the work, they have looked for people to volunteer, but have been unsuccessful.

At least eight people are needed to set up the nets, located in Electric City, with feeders and weights, twice a year. That work is done in October and in March and takes about four hours.

Once the feeders are set up, the fish need to be fed every other day - a two-person, half-hour job that involves pouring 50-pound bags of feed into an automatic feeder from the docks. Those volunteers also need to record the water temperatures, and report dead fish.

At a Dec. 19 meeting, members of POWER, along with Fish and Wildlife officials, discussed what would happen next.

The group typically applies for an Aquatic Lands Enhancement Account grant, which was created by the Washington State Legislature and is mostly funded through the Department of Natural Resources.

The two-year ALEA grant was $9,300 last time, according to Carl Russell, who helped found POWER in 1987. The deadline to apply this year is Feb. 28.

Brian Lyon, complex manager for the Fish and Wildlife's Columbia Basin hatcheries, where POWER's fish are hatched, and Schmuck said they would make an effort to find people to operate the pens. If they are unsuccessful, Russell said, POWER won't bother applying for the grant, and the pens would likely be dismantled.

"They're putting their heads together to see what they can come up with," Russell said.

In a May 2018 article in The Star, Lou Nevsimal of Coulee Playland weighed in on the implications of the pens being shut down.

"The lake has a good reputation for big rainbow," Nevsimal said. "If they stopped stocking them, it would no doubt have an impact on the local economy if the quality of fishing declined – not only for us, but campgrounds, restaurants and gas stations, as well. Fishing here is a huge part of the economy that affects the whole area."