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Gold Hill considers fish City proposes changing diversion canal; biologists suggest more drastic measures By MELISSA MARTIN CENTRAL POINT -- The city of Gold Hill wants to turn what biologists call a fish trap into fish habitat as a way of protecting the city's water supply. Mayor Tim Roddam suggested to biologists, water rights specialists and Bureau of Reclamation officials Wednesday that a diversion canal where Gold Hill draws water for its 466 homes and businesses could be turned into a regular channel of the river. "Instead of keeping fish out of the canal, we would do the opposite -- create this as a side channel of the Rogue River," Roddam told the Rogue River Basin Fish Passage Technical Committee. Chuck Korson of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation office in Bend said the city needs to have the proposal signed off by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. At issue is a diversion canal that runs along Gold Hill's bike path by the Little League fields. The Oregon Water Resources Department is concerned because the city's water right is 3 cubic feet per second, but it draws from a canal where water flows at 130 to 140 cfs. State biologists are concerned because the canal traps fish, which enter at the headgates and exit violently down a 20-foot rock tunnel that shoots the diverted water back to the river. The L-shaped, concrete diversion dam nearby is second only to Savage Rapids Dam on a list of 400 fish passage barriers that must be removed from the Rogue River, ODFW says. "What the mayor is proposing is creating a natural channel of the river, allowing about 20 cubic feet per second of water to go down the channel," Gold Hill Public Works Director Royal Gasso told the fish passage committee. "It's better to draw our water from a place where it's rushing by our intake pumps than drawing from a source or water that's meandering, slow-moving and algae-laden." The Bureau of Reclamation last January proposed six options for Gold Hill. Most of the options would dry up the channel or reduce the flow so that the city would have to move its intake pumps or pipe water down the half-mile-long canal. A reduced flow also would increase water temperatures, making the water more prone to bacteria and more expensive to treat, a city engineer said. The mayor's option calls for creating natural passages for fish on both ends of the canal by blasting the top off of the rock tunnel on one end and removing or notching the diversion dam on the other end. He's also suggesting gravel-lined trenches from the canal to a 100-year-old ditch that used to provide water to a grist mill. "The citizens of Gold Hill would have a part in protecting the coho salmon, a threatened species," Roddam said. "They would be proud of this project." At this stretch of the Rogue River, coho salmon don't need gravel beds; they need high river levels, said Mike Evenson, district biologist for ODFW. Coho salmon migrate upriver during the fall and early winter, which is the time of year when river flow is the lowest. The Rogue River Basin Fish Passage Technical Team will discuss the Gold Hill diversion dam again when it meets at 9 a.m. on May 17 at ODFW's district office, 1495 E. Gregory Road, Central Point. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA