Vermont’s congressional delegation says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to put the federal fish hatchery in Bethel on inactive status, and is asking the agency to stop.
Sen. Peter Welch led an Oct. 7 letter asking Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik to hold off and to brief their staffs by Oct. 30. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Becca Balint and New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand signed it.
Compass found no public announcement from the agency. The lawmakers’ own release calls it a decision, but their letter says only that the Service “apparently intends” to idle the White River National Fish Hatchery.
Compass asked the Service’s Northeast regional office on Oct. 8 for the hatchery review the agency ordered last December, and for any recommendation on Bethel. Compass also asked what inactive status means for the hatchery’s fish and staff, whether the decision is final, and whether Vermont’s Fish and Wildlife Department was consulted.
On Oct. 13, the office replied that it had “no additional information to offer at this time.”
What the Bethel Hatchery Does Now
The lawmakers’ letter describes three jobs the hatchery still does:
Breeding fish for Vermont. It keeps broodstock, the adult fish held to produce eggs, which the letter says complements the state’s own hatcheries across Vermont.
Lake trout eggs for the Great Lakes. It produces about 1 million lake trout eggs each spawning season. They go to the Allegheny National Fish Hatchery in Pennsylvania, which raises the fish for Lakes Erie and Ontario.
Salmon research. It is working with the Lake Champlain Basin Program and the Great Lakes Fishery Commission to rear Atlantic salmon better able to withstand thiamine, or vitamin B1, deficiency. The problem emerged after alewives, an invasive baitfish, displaced native fish in the salmon’s diet, and it hurts the survival of young salmon.
The hatchery has also raised salmon for Lake Champlain. When it reopened in 2016, the Service said its salmon would be stocked on the New York side of the lake, alongside Vermont Fish and Wildlife’s stocking on the Vermont side.
The lawmakers warn that moving the fish to another federal hatchery risks losing the broodstock and disrupting efforts to develop and stock salmon resistant to thiamine deficiency.
This would be the second time in 15 years the hatchery has gone dark. Built in 1984 for Connecticut River salmon, it closed after Tropical Storm Irene flooded it in 2011. The Service stopped raising Connecticut River salmon in 2012, and the hatchery reopened with its Lake Champlain and Great Lakes work.
Lake Champlain’s Trout No Longer Need Stocking
Vermont’s lake trout stocking in Lake Champlain ran through the state’s own hatcheries, not Bethel. In April 2025, the Service, Vermont Fish and Wildlife and New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation declared the lake trout restored and ended stocking after that spring. Officials credited decades of stocking and control of sea lamprey, an invasive fish that feeds on lake trout.
For 30 years, the eggs for Vermont’s stocking came from adult trout at Vermont’s Salisbury Fish Culture Station. The young fish were raised at the state’s Ed Weed Fish Culture Station in Grand Isle. Bethel’s lake trout go to the Great Lakes.
The lawmakers’ letter notes the lake trout stocking has ended, and argues the hatchery’s other jobs still justify keeping it open.
At one Burlington Bay site in 2026, 10 of 11 juvenile lake trout biologists collected were naturally produced. State and federal biologists have said they’ll restart stocking if wild numbers fall.
The Federal Hatchery Review
The possible move comes as the Service reviews all 71 of its national fish hatcheries under an order Nesvik issued Dec. 16, 2025. The lawmakers’ letter dates Director’s Order 230 to March 31, 2026, but that is when it was amended to drop its expiration date.
The order tells reviewers to weigh, among other things:
Whether a hatchery was built for a purpose that no longer fits the agency’s mission
How much money and staff each has
What repairs each actually needs, including put-off maintenance
Ways to run the system more efficiently
How well hatchery staff work with local communities and state and tribal agencies
The order also requires reviewers to get feedback from state and tribal fish and wildlife agencies before making final recommendations. Whether Vermont’s Fish and Wildlife Department weighed in on Bethel is one of the questions the Service didn’t answer.
The order set two deadlines: a first summary of recommendations by Jan. 5, 2026, and detailed results by Feb. 15, 2026. Both go to the director, and the order doesn’t require making them public. Compass couldn’t find either report published, and the Service didn’t provide them or say whether they were finished.
That’s a change from the last systemwide review. After a 2012 review of 70 hatcheries, the Service published a report and in 2014 testified about it before Congress.
The Case on Each Side
The delegation makes three arguments for keeping Bethel running:
Backup in a disaster. The lawmakers say the Dwight D. Eisenhower National Fish Hatchery in North Chittenden filled the gap while Bethel was closed after Irene. With storms getting worse, they say Vermont needs both.
No room elsewhere. They say Eisenhower is already overcrowded, and that moving Bethel’s fish there could overburden it and risk the broodstock.
Congress gave more, not less. Congress gave the national hatchery system about 3.5% more money this year than last.
The public record also holds facts a review could weigh the other way:
The original mission is gone. Bethel was built for Connecticut River salmon, a program the Service ended in 2012. The order tells reviewers to look for hatcheries built for a purpose that no longer fits. Bethel got a new mission when it reopened, though, and the Service hasn’t said how it judged that work.
Eisenhower has covered before. By the lawmakers’ own account, another federal hatchery in Vermont took on Bethel’s work during the Irene closure. Filling in for a few years isn’t the same as taking it on for good.
The Service hasn’t said whether any of these points figured in its decision.
The lawmakers asked for a briefing by Oct. 30. Until the Service briefs them or releases its review, there’s no public account of what idling Bethel would save, or where its fish and research would go.