Hatchery building planned

It's been more than 30 years in the works, but construction may soon be underway to utilize a fish hatchery site near Bigfork.

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Region One has released a draft environmental assessment for the proposed construction of a new 40-by-60-foot steel building at the Rose Creek Hatchery five miles north of Bigfork. The hatchery site is located on Riverside Road between Bigfork and Creston.

Fish hatchery manager Mark Kornick, who manages the site as well as the Flathead Lake Salmon Hatchery in Somers, describes the proposed building as "bare bones." To keep costs down, Kornick himself will end up doing a lot of the interior work.

The hatchery will help him meet the demand. The hatchery system is currently at or exceeding capacity, which makes taking better advantage of the Rose Creek site an ideal solution.

"The potential is great," he said. "That site could put out 10 times what the Flathead Lake hatchery puts out."

The building would double the existing capacity and reduce densities at the Somers site to a more healthy level, according to the assessment. When operational, it will have the capacity for 1.5 million two-inch kokanee salmon or 750,000 two-inch westlope cutthroat trout.

The water quality at Rose Creek is very high, Kornick said, and it maintains a constant temperature of 50 degrees. No pumping of the water would be required, and, because the water comes from an artesian well drilled in 1984, it has no disease issues associated with it, he said. The hatchery will operate under a discharge permit from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

"The costs of running a hatchery there are very low," he said.

Rose Creek was purchased by FWP more than 35 years ago with the goal of developing it as a hatchery. It has seen minor improvements under the direction of Kornick and the Flathead Lake Salmon Hatchery over the past few years. The building would make better use of the FWP's existing water rights at the site, according to the assessment.

"This place has been sort of languishing for the last 30 years," Kornick said.

Two other times in its history money has been set aside to build the hatchery, but fallen through, he said. This time funding for the project, totaling $148,000, is coming mostly through state license dollars with some from federal sport fish restoration dollars. The building will accommodate 3-by-16-foot raceways for hatchery work, probably about 16, with a trench drain through the length of the space. In addition to the building, FWP is proposing to gravel a 40-foot driveway from the existing on-property road and trench 200 feet of underground power to the building.

The draft environmental assessment finds that the project would have minimal impact since the footprint would be less than 1 acre and contained on FWP property. There would be minor impacts during the construction period of noise and dust that would be mitigated. The draft is out for a two-week public review through 5 p.m. Aug. 24.

Designs for the project are 95 percent complete. Kornick hopes construction can begin this fall. It's projected to begin by Nov. 1 with a completion date of Jan. 1, if all goes according to plan.

"We'd like to have it built before the big snow falls and get it into production by February," he said.

For more information or to submit comments, contact Kornick by phone at 857-3744 or e-mail at kokanee@centurytel.net. Copies of the assessment are available at the FWP headquarters in Kalispell and at Flathead County libraries in Kalispell and Bigfork. It's also available online at http://fwp.mt.gov under Public Notices.