Document text
Savage Rapids deal bridges troubled waters By JEFF BARNARD The Associated Press GRANTS PASS - Parties battling since 1988 over Savage Rapids Dam's impact on Rogue River salmon will meet with the governor to commemorate an agreement that could lead to removal of the aging irrigation diversion dam by 2006. Gov. John Kitzhaber is to sign a special declaration Friday recognizing a consent degree that dissolves state and federal lawsuits against the Grants Pass Irrigation District over harm the dam has caused threatened coho salmon. The agreement, filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene at the end of August, calls for installing pumps to draw water out of the Rogue River by 2005, then removing the dam built in 1921. The deal depends on Congress approving as much as $22.2 million for the project. The action is a milestone for a river that was one of the original wild and scenic waterways in the United States, and whose salmon and steelhead runs drew such celebrities as Western writer Zane Grey and actors Clark Gable and Ginger Rogers. "We have been battling a long time," said Bob Hunter of WaterWatch, an environmental group. "People have finally put aside their differences and forged a plan that is good for the river, good for the district, and good for the local community." In the 80 years since Savage Rapids was built, the logging and mining that once sustained southern Oregon have faded. Farms have sprouted homes that tap the water primarily for lawns and gardens. The fight began in 1988, when the district applied for permission from the state Water Resources Department to divert more water from the Rogue River to make up for losses to leaky canals. WaterWatch, the Rogue Flyfishers and the American Fisheries Society opposed the permit as detrimental to fish. An agreement in 1990 gave the district permission to use more water temporarily, as long as it did a study on how to use less water and solve problems with fish safely passing the dam. When the study was finished in 1994, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation engineers advised the cheapest solution was to remove the dam and replace it with pumps. The district agreed to go along. Then in 1998, a recall election resulted in a new district board that abruptly changed course. In the ensuing fight, the district has spent about $750,000 to retain the dam. Since 1995, estimates of the cost of removing the dam and replacing it with pumps has doubled. But in 2000, patrons tired of spending the extra money to retain the dam voted to go along with removal. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.