Breaking News!!  The Presidents 2013 Budget was released on February 13 and according to a USFWS Bureau Highlights document, the mitigation hatcheries, including Norfork National Fish Hatchery and Greer’s Ferry National Fish Hatchery were not included for funding.  The following is an excerpt from page BH-61 of that document.

“Fisheries and Aquatic Resource Conservation – The budget request includes a total $131.6 million for the Fisheries and Aquatic Resource program, a decrease of $3.7 million from the 2012 level.   ……………… These increases are offset by reductions in other program activities, including a $3.2 million program reduction to costs associated with the production of fish for the purpose of mitigating the effects of Federal water development projects.  The FWS will continue to work to recover costs from responsible agencies in order to focus its base funding on native fish recovery and restoration.”

For the second consecutive year, the USFWS has eliminated funding from their proposed budget for the nine mitigation hatcheries which includes the Norfork NFH and Greer’s Ferry NFH in spite of the successful efforts by Congress to reinstate the funding into the 2012 Budget. 

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The current political climate in Washington is for "cost cutting" without much thought that some Federal programs actually return more money to the system than the cost of funding the program. We, you and I, and anyone who is concerned about the ongoing health of our trout fishery and local economy must contact our legislators. Download a letter to each of your senators and a letter to your representative. Sign the letters and put them in the mail. It is as easy as that.
The letters are in both Word and PDF format. If you wish to personalize your letter, download the Word version and modify it to suit.

The Norfork NFH returns $90,427,747 dollars into the economy and $5,996,155 in tax revenue from an annual operating cost of $952,000. Click for the details.
The Greers NFH returns $68,434,866 dollars into the economy and $4,537,833 of tax revenue from an annual operating cost of $606,000. Click for the details.

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