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Treading water in Gold Hill photo by Steve Johnson Gold Hill public works director Royal Gasso and Craig Harper of Rogue Valley Council of Governments stand on the Power House Diversion Dam on the Rogue River. Though Gold Hill depends on the canal for its drinking water, the government wants the dam removed to save migrating fish. Diversion canal issue swirls around money, politics, fish By Melissa Martin of the Mail Tribune GOLD HILL -- People strolling the bike path in Gold Hill enjoy the Rogue River channel for its beauty. Residents treasure the old tailrace as the city's sole source of drinking water. But biologists call it a fish trap, and government officials want it removed. Rebuilt 55 years ago to send water to a cement company's power plant, the canal and the Power House Diversion Dam that feeds it are on a list of fish barriers that the state and federal government want to remove from the Rogue River. "We have a list of 400 barriers in the Rogue River Basin, and this is number two (in priority) after Savage Rapids," said Mike Evenson, district fish biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. ODFW fish and wildlife technician Brad Fuss snorkeled the swift, shallow waters of the nearly half-mile tailrace last month and counted between 40 and 60 juvenile steelhead, each three to six inches long. By comparison, at the fish count station two miles away at Gold Ray Dam, 31,740 spring Chinook and winter steelhead were recorded, Evenson said. "The biggest problem is fish passage, upstream and downstream; once a fish gets in, it can't get back out," Fuss said. Fish that slip through the narrow opening of the dam's head gate and into the channel are trespassing in a city water supply, some residents say. Gold Hill is one of the few communities in Southern Oregon drawing all of its municipal water from the Rogue River. The city's two pumps in the canal carry 450 gallons a minute to the nearby treatment plant, where the water is purified and distributed to nearly 500 homes and businesses in town. "What few fish get stranded in the canal would be far overshadowed by the value and benefit of the canal to the city," said Ted Wharton, who lived in Gold Hill the first 15 years of his life and now makes his home in Medford. Wilmer Bailey, a 39-year employee of the cement operation who helped build the power plant's fish ladder, agreed. "I've lived here in Gold Hill for 91 years and I've seen the fish run up the river for years and years," Bailey said. "I've never seen how the dam or canal had any effect on the fish going up or coming down. These guys try to do everything for a fish, but the city of Gold Hill needs the canal." Besides being a barrier to fish passage, the canal is the cause for the city drawing more water from the Rogue River than it has a legal right to, said Ellen Berggren, activity manager for the Bureau of Reclamation in Boise. The city has a right to 3 cubic feet per second (cfs), but it's taking an estimated 140 cfs through the canal alone, she said. "There were water rights historically when the power plant was in operation," Berggren said. "The city designed its system around the canal. But now the water right has expired." What this likely means for Gold Hill is that the federal government will require the city to move its intake pumps out of the canal and into the main channel of the Rogue River. But the cost to move the pumps will be too great for a lower middle class community like Gold Hill, the public works director said. "We are a small municipality with extremely limited resources," said Royal Gasso, public works director for Gold Hill. That's where Corky Lockard of the Rogue Valley Council of Governments comes in. He's helping the city apply for state lottery funds, ODFW fish screening grants, Oregon Water Enhancement Board grants and funds from the Northwest Economic Initiative (the federal Jobs in the Woods program). "Gold Hill doesn't have the money for this project and we will help them find funding, get the necessary permits and do the engineering studies," Lockard said. How to turn the canal into a fish-friendly place is still up for debate, Berggren said. The Bureau of Reclamation is expected to complete a report this month. Drying up the channel would be the easiest solution, biologists say. Another option is screening the channel near the head gate, which would reduce the velocity of water in the canal to the point that it could fill up with silt. Also on the list is providing upstream and downstream passage on both ends of the channel, Fuss said. City leaders have suggested repairing and using a fish weir built in 1944 to pipe salmon and steelhead out of the canal. "What it boils down to is, what are the city's priorities?" Fuss said. "Do they want to maintain water in the side channel and if so, how much are they willing to spend to do that?" The canal has been the city's water source since the early 1900s. It provides a natural way to keep logs and debris from damaging fish screens on the intake pumps, according to Dwayne Lee of Lee Engineering, the city's contract engineer. "The side channel also provides some pre-settling against suspended matter in the water so we don't have so much difficulty treating it," Lee said. But what's been good for people has been bad for fish. The channel is like a trap, Fuss said. On one end, the water velocity at the head gate creates more pressure than a fish can overcome to get out. On the other end is the channel's return to the river by narrowing through a culvert and dropping turbulently six to eight feet onto bedrock, bouncing through a 40-foot tunnel and emptying out into the Rogue River. "That's not a good situation for a fish, to get dropped six feet onto rough bedrock and bounced through a rock tunnel," Fuss said. But Bailey believes there are plenty of other routes fish can take to avoid the side channel and the dam. The longtime resident is an avid angler. "I fished the Rogue River from the time I was big enough to get on it and up until the time the rocks were too slippery for me to get on them," Bailey said. "There's nothing that can hold those fish back. If they count 40,000 fish over Gold Ray Dam, you know they got up there some way." Biologists have no way of knowing the impact that the dam and canal have on fish counts, the ODFW biologist said. "If fish are being delayed at the dam at the city of Gold Hill, we wouldn't see those delays," Fuss said. "Healthy or stronger fish would make it, but there is the possibility it's having a negative impact on them." Wharton said fish have learned to find a way around the dam. He was born in Gold Hill in 1919 and fished the river as a youngster growing up there. "If these dams are stopping all these fish, how come they are getting so many fish clear up at the hatchery?" Wharton asked. "They've had some of the biggest runs of the year. The fish have got to be getting around these obstacles somehow." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA