Sawmill Creek Hatchery is NSRAA’s newest facility in Sitka. Construction was completed in 2008, and the first Coho were ponded at the hatchery in 2012 after initial brood stock from Salmon Lake were developed at Medvejie Hatchery. This facility was designed to produce 2,000,000 coho smolt annually. Production eggs are incubated at Sawmill Creek Hatchery, reared in raceways and/or ponds to full term smolt, and then transported to Deep Inlet for imprinting and rearing prior to release. There is no fish ladder at Sawmill Creek Hatchery. Medvejie Hatchery remains the site for brood stock rearing, release, adult return, and all egg takes for coho production between the two facilities.
Adult production at Deep Inlet is intercepted in traditional northern outside troll fisheries and a Sitka Sound and Eastern Channel troll fishery. Coho troll harvest rate averages just over 50% at current production levels. Fish escaping these troll fisheries enter the Deep Inlet Terminal Harvest Area (THA) and get caught in chum salmon directed Deep Inlet rotational gillnet, seine, and troll fisheries. Some sport interception occurs as well near Sitka, averaging roughly 10% of the return annually.
As the facility was building up to full Coho production, it was decided to utilize the large indoor rearing room, which is open during the winter months, for Chum incubation. Currently, 30 million eggs for Crawfish Inlet and 20 million eggs for Deep Inlet are taken at Medvejie Hatchery and, after eye-up, are transferred to Sawmill Creek Hatchery for hatch and incubation. The fish are then ponded at Sawmill Creek Hatchery and transported to their respective rearing projects.
The facility now in the process of a phased expansion to add a new 15,000 sq. ft. building with indoor rearing capable of heated recirculation and an incubation room with a 50 million green egg capacity. This expansion will produce up to an additional 2,000,000 Chinook for release annually. With the expansion on the horizon, smaller groups of Chinook have been reared at Sawmill, as space has allowed. The first Chinook eggs arrived in 2020 and as of 2023, multiple expansion phases are underway with the expectation of completion by 2025.
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