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45 °F Forecast | Road Cams Sunday, March 7, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find a Rental Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Email Story to a Friend February 23, 2004 These rainbow trout will head to Diamond Lake after maturing at the refurbished Butte Falls Hatchery. Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell Renovated hatchery teems with fish By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune BUTTE FALLS — Looking more like a Roman ruin than a place to grow fish, the crumbling concrete pond for years stood as a reminder of how old and antiquated the Butte Falls Hatchery really was. It leaked like a sieve and moss sprouted from the cracks. The archaic pond looked every bit of its 89 years, and never really worked that well to begin with. "The old timers tell me that big pond was a nightmare," hatchery manager Devan Garlock says. But it works like a dream now. The pond teems with tiny fish again, thanks to a $308,000 rebuilding job that transformed one large and old pond into five state-of-the-art raceways for fish. Advertisement Fed with modern and adjustable water pipes and lined specially for cleanliness, the pond that once stood out like the worst eyesore is now the newest asset as part of the 89-year-old hatchery’s nearly $1 million face-lift. "They’re well-designed ponds that work very well and are easy to clean," Garlock says. "We’re really happy with them." The new ponds had their first graduating class Thursday when 75,000 young coho salmon were pulled out and trucked home to the Rock Creek Hatchery along the North Umpqua River. These coho, which were bred from fish collected at Rock Creek, will get acclimated to the taste and smells of the North Umpqua’s water before they are released into the river. If not caught by sport and commercial anglers in the ocean and if spared by predators, these coho will returnas adults to the North Umpqua in the fall of 2006 — just as the new ponds’ third class of fin-clipped coho work toward graduation. The new pond is the latest phase of the massive rebuilding of one of Oregon’s oldest fish hatcheries. A new water-intake system was installed not only to deliver Big Butte Creek water to the ponds but also keep wild cutthroat in the stream from becoming impaled on a screen covering the intake. The leaky water pipe into the hatchery was repaired, while the hatch-house — the building where eggs are incubated and hatched — was rebuilt. Some of the old remnants remain, but enough of the facility has been refurbished that close to 500,000 coho eggs and fry for coastal streams were there until Thursday’s shipment. "We still have some problems with crumbling concrete, but we got almost everything back into working condition," Garlock says. "And that’s amazing." It’s also expensive. Since the refurbishing project began more than two years ago, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has spent about $846,000 on the project, Garlock says. Another $300,000 has been approved, but not yet spent, on building a pollution-abatement pond to treat used hatchery water as required by the federal Clean Water Act. For funding, the ODFW turned to its Oregon Restoration and Enhancement Program, which takes an annual $2 surcharge on fishing licenses and helps fuel restoration projects like this one, ODFW spokeswoman Anne Pressentin Young says. Though the work comes while state agencies like the ODFW are cutting costs elsewhere, the restoration and enhancement money cannot be used to fund positions at the hatcheries that the program refurbishes, Pressentin Young says. "Those are two completely different funding sources," Pressentin Young says. Restoring the hatchery may be the equivalent of putting titanium knees in an 89-year-old man, but there is one very good reason for continuing to rear fish there for coastal streams high in the Cascades. It’s the water. The cool, bottle-quality Big Butte Creek water that wets Medford’s whistle also provides some of the best fish-rearing environment in all of Oregon. The water was the reason the hatchery was built there, and the reason it remains, Garlock says. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback 3 WEEKS FREE! ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S RESOURCES Oregon Road Conditions & Cams SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Food for Thought Wellness Connection Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities Prime Times