The state has terminated an aquaculture group’s contract for the Lutak king salmon enhancement project, where recent accidents are pushing up per-fish costs.

With a projected return rate of less than one percent, each adult king salmon returning from the Lutak project this year will cost between $60 and $120. But when fish return from this year’s diminished release, they’ll cost the state between $187.50 and $375 each.

The Lutak project, in its third year, is under review by the state, which recently cancelled a 10-year contract held by the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association.

“I wish that wasn’t the case,” said Steve Reifenstuhl, general manager of NSRAA.

The $1.5 million project is funded by king salmon license fees. It takes king eggs from the Tahini River, a Chilkat River tributary, holds them in a hatchery, and releases the resulting smolt from pens in Lutak Inlet.

NSRAA released 80,000 king salmon smolt from the Lutak pen on July 17, less than a third of the 250,000 fish the state contract called for. An accident during transport of the smolt to the pens killed 170,000 of the fish in late June.

Reifenstuhl said they have removed the pens from Lutak and have no contract for next year.

Judy Lum, enhancement coordinator for sport fish in Southeast, said she couldn’t confirm that the contract was terminated, but said Fish and Game is looking into improving survival rates and that the project will continue next year.

Fish from the Lutak pens are less than one year old when released. Known as “zero-check” smolt, their marine survival rates are half that of smolts raised in hatcheries more than one year.

NSRAA has only one other site in Southeast where it releases zero-checks, and the survival rate is less than 1 percent. Marine survival rates of one-check fish are above 2 percent, Reifenstuhl said.

Lum said Fish and Game is looking for hatcheries with space now, but will go ahead with the project regardless.

According to a study commissioned by the state, in 2007 resident anglers spent an average of $150 per day of sportfishing activity on trip-related expenses in 2007, while nonresident anglers spent an average of $448 per day in Alaska on trip-related expenses.

Reifenstuhl said the state has known of low survival rates for zero-check fish since the project’s start.

Lum said the project went ahead three years ago with the zero-check smolt release because there were no facilities in the region that had space to raise 250,000 smolt more than a year.

The Lutak project uses Tahini River fish for brood stock. A project on Baranof Island using Tahini stock was stopped due to low survival rates.

Environmentalists fear the true cost of the project may be greater than numbers included in this story, if hatchery kings released at Lutak take a bite of wild king salmon smolt or sockeye smolt from Chilkoot Lake.

State biologists have said that eight king releases in Southeast, including ones dating back 20 years, show they don’t impact wild fish. State policy prevents hatchery king releases in wild king salmon systems.

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