BURLINGTON, WA (MyBellinghamNow.com) – Roughly 1 million young chinook salmon died at a hatchery in Skagit County after a mechanical failure.

The state Department of Fish and Wildlife said the incident occurred at its Samish Hatchery near Burlington at 1 a.m. on Monday, April 29.

Floating debris brought on by Sunday night’s heavy rains clogged an intake screen. That resulted in low water and poor water quality in the outdoor pond that held 2 million Chinook fry. The accident killed nearly half of those salmon, who were set to be released into the Samish River in the coming weeks.

Fish and Wildlife said an alarm that should have alerted staff to clean the clogged screen didn’t go off because of an issue with the electrical breaker. They’re investigating the incident to prevent future failures.

The Samish Hatchery program is co-managed with the Lummi Nation and Nooksack Indian Tribe.

The breakdown of the Samish Hatchery is something activists have warned against. The Conservation Angler and Wild Fish Conservancy jointly filed a lawsuit last month against regional and federal government agencies for violations of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) from Columbia River hatcheries.

Concerns of hatcheries conditions color opinions over hatcheries’ effectiveness. The Conservation Angler’s David Moskowitz told My Bellingham Now many hatcheries are not in good condition.

“The concrete is crumbling. The rebar is rusting. The stainless steel is no longer stainless and yet what we want to do is just pick them up without any kind of evaluation,” Moskowitz said.

The suit lists ESA violations such as releasing too many hatchery fish into the environment which negatively impacts wild chinook, chum and coho salmon and steelhead trout. Helverson believes the hatcheries’ work to recover salmon and steelhead trout species is not working.

“Ultimately, we expect our federal agencies to follow the laws,” Helverson said. “They have set these standards saying, ‘these are the standards we need to meet to ensure wild fish are protected’ and they are not meeting those standards.”

She said government-funded hatcheries are exceeding set limits of fish production that is threatening already at-risk species. Helverson cites a July 2023 study as evidence that the $9 billion spent in the last four decades on Columbia River Basin hatcheries has not benefitted wild fish. If anything, she said the extra funding has hurt them.

“Despite those large investments, these fish in the Columbia River are not just being harvested in the Columbia River, they’re going out of the Columbia’s mouth, and they hang a right and go all the way up to Southeast Alaska,” Helverson said. “We have the example of our Southern Resident killer whales that depend on wild chinook who are starving to death. That’s a clear indicator that we have a chinook crisis.”

Fish and Wildlife has a page on their website providing more information on plans for hatchery management. It speaks to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s fisheries and current regulations on the industry in the state.

A court date has not yet been determined for the lawsuit.