The Colville Tribal Hatchery is more than 20 years old and was designed to produce 50,000 pounds of trout annually.  The facility was not designed to hold captive rainbow broodstock, but to receive eggs from other sources.  The Colville Tribes have made a commitment to replace the non-native coastal strains of rainbow trout and develop a local broodstock with the native redband rainbow trout.  In order to meet this commitment at least three raceways must be used to hold broodstock.  Two additional temporary raceways were constructed, but no improvements have been made to the water system.  Consequently, there is insufficient water and space available to hold broodstock, as well as meet the stocking requirements for the lakes and streams on the Colville Reservation.

Several options for holding broodstock offsite were investigated.  It was concluded that the most practical option was to contract with a local aquaculture facility to hold redband broodstock and other fish as needed in order to lessen the load on the hatchery and it's water system.  The hatchery is continuing to work towards completing the water improvement project, this will make more water available for rearing and achievement of program goals, which include captive redband broodstock rearing.  This is a continuation of a contract, second year, of net pen rearing redband rainbow trout for broodstock and other program needs.