Save Dale Hollow NFH

Dale Hollow NFH is facing steep budget cuts that could end in its closure or a two-thirds production cut in fish that would leave Tennessee 960,000 to 1.3 million fish short per year depending on how U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) administers these cuts. We can help avoid this funding dilemma, however, by contacting our U.S. House Representative and two U.S. Senators: Alexander and Corker and letting them know we want a funding solution set for Dale Hollow NFH for the sake of the Tennessee sport fishing industry and all the economic activity it produces.

The President's proposed, FY 2012 budget cuts $6.28 million from the National Fish Hatchery System for what is called "mitigation" activities that would eliminate or substantially reduce production at nine different hatcheries across the country; six in the southeast; and two in Tennessee: Dale Hollow and Erwin. According to FWS documents, these activities will be cut unless full reimbursements are negotiated from responsible parties.

In Tennessee, the responsible parties are U.S. Army Core of Engineers (COE) and TVA. COE has proposed to pay 80% of the sought reimbursement for all the hatcheries involved for FY 2012. TVA has not agreed to pay any. Dale Hollow's production is over 90% mitigation and about 60% TVA mitigation, so, if the cuts come down as they are now lined up, Dale Hollow NFH faces either closure or about a two-thirds cut in funding. The former would leave Tennessee short the entire 1.3-1.4 million currently produced for Tennessee. The latter would leave Tennessee short around 960,000 fish; but the loss in TVA waters would be devastating, since no fish would be produced by Dale Hollow for those waters.

Dale Hollow Fish wind up in seven out of nine congressional districts in Tennessee, including Roe, Fleischmann, Duncan, Desjarlais, Black, Blackburn, and Cooper; so, chances are, the Congressperson in your district receive fish and the economic benefit of those fish from Dale Hollow NFH. Of course, our two senators should be interested as well that Tennessee keeps a vibrant fishing industry for the economic output it creates.

Please call your three representatives as soon as possible to get pressure on the three parties to resolve this funding issue.

It's easy to voice your support for TN fishing. You can call or write or simply email both U.S. Senators. Just click and start typing:

http://corker.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=ContactMe
http://alexander.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=Email

Find your, specific House Rep. Click and Type:

http://roe.house.gov/Contact/
https://desjarlais.house.gov/contact-me/email-me
http://duncan.house.gov/services/zip-auth.shtml
https://fleischmann.house.gov/contact-me/email-me
http://cooper.house.gov/index.php?op...=117&Itemid=61
https://black.house.gov/contact-me/email-me
http://blackburn.house.gov/contactform/

The seven districts represented by the Congressman listed below all receive fish from Dale Hollow NFH. Only two districts in west TN do not receive Dale Hollow Fish.

Our Friends Group has turned this thing around in the Hatcheries district. Rep. Black called the Hatchery manager and met with him, the County Mayor, the Chamber of Commerce leader and others. She now understands the issue and supports a solution (I hope) but the other Congressmen need to know, because it will impact their districts as well, if the Hatchery loses funding. That's why we're reaching out to fishermen all over the state

You can call or write. If you want to email, just go to the links below and begin filling out the short form and type your message. Your message can be as simple as:

Your House Rep: Please support a full funding solution for Dale Hollow National Fish Hatchery, so that our district keeps all the stocked fish produced by that hatchery.

Senator: Please support a full funding solution for Dale Hollow National Fish Hatchery, so that Tennessee keeps over a million stocked fish per year in its waters.

If you don't know your House Rep, go here. You need your zip code and four-digit extension. https://writerep.hou...p/welcome.shtml

If you don't know your four-digit extension, go here: http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/welcome.jsp

If you would like to join the friends group, Friends of the Dale Hollow National Fish Hatchery, send me an email, and I'll send you updates on this issue as they occur. You don't have to do anything to join the group except send the email, but you are welcome to work as hard as you want to help spread the information to the public, state officials, and Congress.
faulkner.pgail@yahoo.com

There are two solutions to this funding issue.
(1) Congress can vote to put the base funding back in for mitigation activities. This would not necessarily mean a gov't spending increase. Congress can force FWS to take money out of other, planned programs (i.e. $140 million for new land acquisitions) and put the $6.3 million back in for mitigation fish. A vote could cut spending, while still giving money back to stock fish in southeastern states.

(2) Congress and state officials from AR, TN, KY,AL,OK, & GA can put pressure on the "responsible parties" (TVA and COE for Tennessee) to pay full reimbursements for mitigation.

Either solution would mean Tennessee would not lose 960,000 to 1.3 million fish per year.

[bd-]

Pgail66, thank you for your efforts on this. TVA's attitude on this issue has been unbelievable.

This year has seen one political game after another played out on the backs of our fisheries and wildlife.

bd

TWRA has finally come out publicly in support of national hatchery funding in the form of a press release and an exclusive story on Channel 4 TV in Nashville. This will make all the difference in the world to help get congressional support. We can win this battle; please help by contacting your three representatives. Read post below to see how. It's easy!

Here are some links:
http://www.wsmv.com/news/28013458/detail.html
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20...l-budget-cuts-
http://www2.tricities.com/news/2011/...pr-ar-1064489/
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/...s_8485251.html

There are more media releases forth coming. I'll post them as they come available.

Originally Posted by bd-

Pgail66, thank you for your efforts on this. TVA's attitude on this issue has been unbelievable.
bd

Thanks for the encouragement. When I started finding and posting on these boards, I was afraid my posts would be taken down. But so far, moderators and administrators have been supportive.

I have no personal motive for working this issue other than keeping fish in our state and in the southeast just as all anglers want. It's just a fight worth fighting and one I think we can win!

[Farley]

FLAME SUIT ON! Unfortnately our government is on an unsustainable path and we cannot continue to throw trillions of dollars in every direction. I'm all Dale Hollow Hatchery but it should be the The Tennessee Dale Hollow Hatchery. These types of projects should be in the hands of the states not the federal government.

[bd-]

I would tend to agree with you, except that the tailwaters are operated under the auspices of the federal government, through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and TVA. Since the federal government has built the dams that impact the local fisheries (and impact the economies connected to them), the federal government is responsible for mitigating the effects of their projects. Trout stocking is intended as a mitigation measure.

Before the dams were built, local communities received economic benefits from the rivers - just as one example, the Caney Fork was known nationally as a smallmouth river and it supported a huge export trade of freshwater pearls too. When Center Hill Dam was built, those economic benefits went away. Trout stocking replaces the lost benefits with a new fishery that draws people to the area and helps the local community with economic activity.

In other words, the federal government built the dams to benefit a broad area with power generation and flood control. However, the dams have a deleterious effect on local communities. Logically, the feds should "pay back" the local communities for the economic impact of the dam by providing mitigation.

It's all well and good to say "well, the dams should be state projects too," but the reality is that the goals of the dams are flood control and power generation. Both those goals extend across state lines, because both the power grid and the flood control watersheds are bigger than any one state. Since the impacts affect multiple states, it would be logistically impossible for Tennessee or any other state to manage dam operations without inviting conflicts with contiguous states. Operations of the dams falls under "interstate commerce" as contemplated in Art. I, Section 8 of the Constitution as a jurisdiction of federal government.

bd

Originally Posted by bd-

I
In other words, the federal government built the dams to benefit a broad area with power generation and flood control. However, the dams have a deleterious effect on local communities. Logically, the feds should "pay back" the local communities for the economic impact of the dam by providing mitigation.
bd

Amen.
Also, if you look deeper into the budget proposal, FWS and the President originally proposed to increase the FWS budget by $47.8 million (It's possible that's been changed now behind closed doors; not sure).

The FWS has requested $140 million in new land acquisitions and to put more emphasis in areas of climate change.

Now I'm not taking sides on what we should or should not be doing on the climate change issue, but it's pretty easy to see that FWS is not trying to save the tax payer money by taking away wasteful spending. There are few places in the government where spending creates such positive impacts as the national fish hatchery system. For instance, a 2010 economic impact study revealed that every dollar spent to run the hatchery creates $94 in economic activity and $2.93 ends up back in the federal treasury by the economic output created by the hatchery. Other hatcheries in the system have the same effect, because all the hatcheries that are left have had to become extremely productive in order to be as serviceable to the states as possible.

So, if you are for these cuts, you are saying that everything else FWS does is more important than what they can do with this $6.3 million that is being cut; or, you are saying, that FWS should be eliminated. Well, if we eliminate them, let's phase out the national fish hatcheries last; not first!

Originally Posted by bd-

I
It's all well and good to say "well, the dams should be state projects too," but the reality is that the goals of the dams are flood control and power generation. Both those goals extend across state lines, because both the power grid and the flood control watersheds are bigger than any one state. Since the impacts affect multiple states, it would be logistically impossible for Tennessee or any other state to manage dam operations without inviting conflicts with contiguous states. Operations of the dams falls under "interstate commerce" as contemplated in Art. I, Section 8 of the Constitution as a jurisdiction of federal government.
bd

Not to mention, in the case of TVA, executives are making millions a year in salaries, all of which is paid for by rate payers from the power they generate, part of which comes for hydro-electric dams.

In other words, in a sense they are profiting off the generation of this power that was allowed for by the construction of these dams, which destroyed fish habitats.

The least they can do is to try to restore everything back to the citizens that they took away, especially since the existence of these projects helps keep them rich!

If you take the $835,000 requested by FWS from TVA that would go towards mitigation at three hatcheries, divide that amount by the total number of rate payers, it would be less than a penny per rate payer. Alternatively, if you figured out which rate payers benefit from mitigation and divided by those rate payers, I'm confident it would still be less than a nickel per affected rate payer. This would be user paid; not paid by all tax payers as it is now for TVA mitigation at least. Now it is true that not everyone fishes, but nearly everyone benefits from the fish. Nearly every person in the region reaps some kind of reward from the economic activity.

So, one can pick either funding side and still be for funding. Only FWS and COE pay, or COE and TVA pays. With respect to COE and FWS, all tax payers pay, but with TVA, only the rate payers who have easy access to the fisheries pay. You can slice it about three ways, but any of those solutions are federal funding solutions.

If you have the right plug-in, you can click on the link and hear a podcast that aired on 99.7 WTN, in Nashville, on the Doug Markham show, Sat., May 28 around 6:25 am. about this issue.

The hosts interview Andrew Currie, manager of Dale Hollow NFH. He fully explains this funding dilemma and the hosts ask some good questions to prompt him to say things he's not allowed to say unless asked. This podcast is probably about 20 min. long.

http://www.dougoutdoors.com/dougoutdoors/Podcasts.html

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.

Front page on the printed newspaper: Knoxville News Sentinel. Wednesday.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/ju...l-budget-cuts/

Another TV spot in Nashville. Channel 5 (CBS affiliate)

http://www.newschannel5.com/story/14...ish-hatcheries

Story also hit Clarksville newspaper and five other places in Tennessee yesterday.