Orcas hatchery gets $5k grant from Royal Bank of Canada
Published 11:03 am Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Orcas Island’s own Glenwood Springs Hatchery will soon benefit from a $5,000 Community Action Grant given by the Royal Bank of Canada as part of its Blue Water Project™ commitment to watershed protection.
“With 2011 federal and state funding for Glenwood Springs in jeopardy, this critical support will help LLTK to perform hatchery practices that mimic nature, support a valuable North Puget Sound fishery by contributing hatchery‐raised Chinook for marked selective fishing, host tours of the Glenwood Springs facility, raise awareness about Chinook lifecycle, biology, and cultural and economic significance, participate in the Salmon‐in‐the‐Classroom and other educational programs, and provide Chinook to local schools for learning exercises and cafeteria lunches,” said Jacques White, spokesman for Long Live the Kings, the Seattle‐based salmon conservation nonprofit that runs the Orcas hatchery.
“The Glenwood Springs Hatchery represents how a community has taken on resource management, with a positive impact,” said White.
The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Blue Water Project™ is a wide‐ranging, multi‐year program to help foster a culture of water stewardship. Since lack of access to clean water is considered to be one of the major threats to human health and economic development around the world, RBC is working to create a “blue water future” of sustainable water resources worldwide. Since 2007, RBC has committed more than $28 million in single and multi‐year grants to nearly 400 organizations.
Glenwood Springs Hatchery was established in 1978 by island resident, Jim Youngren, utilizing a small network of springs that weren’t occupied by fish and drained a short distance before entering East Sound. Eggs were imported from a nearby hatchery to create a Chinook run where none existed. Because no wild Chinook originate in the San Juan Islands, this new salmon run has provided harvest opportunities while posing little threat to threatened wild fish.
Youngren founded Long Live the Kings in 1986. Since then, LLTK, with help from the community, has operated the facility, using it to demonstrate how small freshwater sources can be used sustainably for fish rearing as an alternative to locating hatcheries on rivers where native fish are present.
