Bad News; but it could have been worse. And remember, FWS don't have the final say. Congress does.

This is what Fish and Wildlife Service Washington office says they are going to do for FY 2012 in my own words, because I've only heard this orally from a hatchery employee who heard it from his hatchery manager. If I can get this in writing later, I'll put it out.

They will keep all southeastern hatcheries operating with no reduction in force (no layoffs) through FY 2012 (October 2011 through September 2012), however, they will not produce any fish for TVA waters, if TVA does not agree to pay reimbursement in FY 2012. They will produce only 80% of the fish for COE waters, if COE pays only 80% of the requested reimbursement (COE will see a 20% reduction from current levels). Keeping these hatcheries operating w/o reimbursements, however, is not sustainable, and hatchery closures and reductions in force are expected going into FY 2013 if full reimbursements are not agreed upon before then.

Hatcheries will lose deferred maintenance and other capital outlays. Those budgets will be taken away and applied to their operating budgets.

To put this in real simple terms, FWS proposes putting mitigation hatcheries on welfare for one year. I say welfare, because, basically, the Service is going to give them enough funds to employ everyone and for all utilities, but they won't really be producing enough product to justify all that labor and all that infrastructure. However, the hatcheries staying open, with all their folks is better than closure, because, if they close, it is likely we would lose them forever. Another advantage of hatcheries staying open is that they will all still be producing fish for mitigation and non-mitigation that is paid for. If Dale Hollow had closed, for instance, Tennessee could have lost the 80% COE fish; and all the state production they have been doing, even though those portions of production would have been reimbursed. This way, at least Tennessee will get the fish that are paid for.

Now remember, this is still just FWS plan based on a proposed budget that has not been approved yet. We can keep fighting. The information I got was that there is certain congressman in KY, TN, and GA that are pushing hard to get the base funds back in. There is also a certain senator in AR that has raised all kinds of heck with FWS, Washington office staff. My point is that all the public support and all the hell-raising by the state's is making a difference. We need to just push that much harder getting the word out to the media and to get folks to contact their congresspersons.

FWS has already backed off their original budget proposal due to the pressure put on them by Congressmen, governors, and wildlife directors from each affected state. It will take some of that $6.3 million they had cut from the National Fish Hatchery System to keep all these hatcheries open, so they have already conceded some ground. We need to work to put pressure on all parties to work this out before October (FWS, COE, and TVA), and get them all to concede ground for full production.