YOUR LOCALLY OWNED NEWSPAPER SERVING SNOQUALMIE AND NORTH BEND
SNO★VALLEY
STAR
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2016
PREP SPORTS YEAR IN REVIEW Mount Si baseball’s unexpected spring is No. 1 moment Page 7
Hatchery operations hit low-water mark BY STUART MILLER smiller@snovalleystar.com
SPECIAL REPORT
Most years, Christmas season at the Tokul Creek Hatchery in Fall City is a time for spawning hatchery steelhead trout. For fishing enthusiasts on the Snoqualmie River and its tributaries, it means hours spent pursuing steelhead. Not this year. The steelhead trout released by Tokul hatchery for more than 100 years start making their way back home around the holidays. They often swim out of Puget Sound, up the Snoqualmie River, into Tokul Creek and into the hatchery ponds starting just after Thanksgiving. The hatchery spawning process usually begins right around Christmas. This year, as of Christmas Day, just three steelhead had returned to the hatchery — two females and one male. It is likely the lowest number of fish they’ve had return this time of year, and far less than the hatchery’s modest goal this season. Also, for the first time
TROUBLE AT TOKUL Today: An examination of Tokul Creek Hatchery’s steelhead planting practices and the arguments behind the 2014 lawsuit that is affecting operations. Jan. 6: How science and research influence the debate over the hatchery’s relationship with wild steelhead. Jan. 13: A strained relationship between the hatchery and the Wild Fish Conservancy has muddied the waters as both look for a path forward.
in recent memory, the Snoqualmie River is completely closed to fishing from Dec. 16 to Feb. 15 in hopes of allowing at least 50 fish to return for the hatchery’s broodstock. SEE TOKUL, PAGE 6
STUART MILLER | smiller@snovalleystar.com
Debi Sanchez, longtime Tokul Creek Hatchery specialist, checks lake-stock trout roe in the hatchery’s rearing trough.
GREG FARRAR | gfarrar@snovalleystar.com
A barricade erected by the city of North Bend beside the last home in the Cedar Falls development at end of the 1200 block of Salish Avenue Southeast indicates the road is planned to eventually be extended into an older, currently more sparsely built neighborhood.
GROWING PAINS
North Bend defends its small-town character BY STUART MILLER smiller@snovalleystar.com
After experiencing years of rapid growth following the end of a longstanding building moratorium in 2010, North Bend residents and city officials are attempting to deal with growing pains around the small town. On Dec. 12, the North Bend City Council released an open letter to residents, laying out the councilmembers’ collective position on “The Realities of Maintaining North Bend’s Small Town Character.” The council recognized the frustrations and dialogue around town and laid out general strategies for absorbing growth and respecting property rights, while also attempting to hold on to North Bend’s character. When North Bend residents Blake Schneider and his friend Sean, who preferred not to provide his last name, returned to North Bend from their military service and deployments in the Middle East, they said they came home to a significantly
changed town. Some of the first things they noticed were the development of formerly open, rural areas, and a lot more strangers around town. “I saw a local farm lot had become a subdivision,” Sean said of his homecoming. According to Mayor Ken Hearing, North Bend’s population in 1999 was about 4,700 people. Today it is just shy of 7,000. Snoqualmie has grown by about 11,000 people in that same time period, but the nature of that growth has been very different. Snoqualmie’s population growth was almost entirely absorbed, over the last couple decades, in the master-planned Ridge development, which is geographically separate from historic Snoqualmie. North Bend has experienced much of its growth over the last six years. In that time, 252 new single-family homes and two duplexes have been erected, and many formerly unincorporated areas were annexed.
More building is on the way. There are currently 1,205 units submitted with the city for permitting, including 568 single-family residences, 429 apartments-condos-duplexes, 101 cottages and a 32-unit mixed-use building. An application for a development agreement has been submitted for 150 condotownhome units just east of Nintendo’s property south of North Bend Way. The application is subject to approval by the City Council. Gini Echoes, who grew up in the North Bend area and now bartends at the Sure Shot Pub in town, said the number of SEE GROWTH, PAGE 6
Prsrt Std U.S. Postage PAID Kent, WA Permit No. 71 POSTAL CUSTOMER