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Hutchins patiently plays wading game Photo by Mark Freeman Jim Hutchins, a 63-year-old man from rural West Medford, has seen several improvements to Bear Creek during his six years of counting spawning chinook salmon as part of a federal Bureau of Reclamation project. Bear Creek's official salmon counter oversees improvements By MARK FREEMAN Here's how you can aid Hutchins Rogue Valley residents who keep an eye on Bear Creek can aid Jim Hutchins in his search to count fall chinook salmon spawning in the creek this year. People who spy spawning fish, or their egg nests, can telephone or e-mail Hutchins so he can check them out and possibly add them to his counts. To reach Hutchins, telephone 770-2703 or e-mail him at [email protected] With neoprene waders and a wooden walking stick, Jim Hutchins measures Bear Creek's improvements one more live salmon and one less dead shopping cart at a time. For the past six autumns, Hutchins has walked Bear Creek's corridor, which is known more as home to the riffraff of Medford and the excrement of Ashland than a producer of wild salmon for the Rogue River. "Most people who walk along this creek," he says, "are just looking for a place to hide. "But once in a while I see an old bedspring, hit it with my stick and the salmon fry shoot out from underneath. It's amazing. Salmon fry. Hiding in a bedspring. My guess is, we can do better than that for the fish." Hutchins, 63, is one more ripple in the growing wave of Rogue Valley residents trying to improve Bear Creek and its native fish that, despite the water's many ills, still call it home. As Bear Creek's official fall salmon counter, Hutchins has a unique perspective on how far the creek has come over the past decade's worth of improvement efforts. Bear Creek's water, long known as some of the filthiest in Oregon, has cleared enough that it now casts Hutchins' reflection as he hikes his three one-mile survey stretches weekly from October through December. MT file photo A lonely chinook swims to the left of a discarded bicycle's front tire at Bear Creek. Gone is Jackson Street dam, which created a sludgy backwater and blocked chinook salmon passage upstream. Missing, too, are some of the more seedy sides to the stream -- the bags of illegal drugs, the dumpster loads of garbage and the submerged shopping carts that once dotted the creek bed like stepping stones through a garden. These improvements may seem like baby steps, but they represent enough positive direction that Hutchins is excited about the creek's future. "I'm old enough to see what happens when we ignore a stream, and old enough to see what happens when we help fix them," Hutchins says. "People in Butte Falls and Grants Pass might believe fixing Bear Creek is useless. Well, we don't believe that. "I love Bear Creek. I love its potential." For decades, Bear Creek's only potential has seemed like nothing more than a place to get a skin rash. The creek has spent most of this century as the official, and unofficial, sewer for everyone from Central Point to Ashland. In February 1945, for instance, Medford police crushed and dumped 36 sticks of found dynamite into the creek. All the municipalities discharged their effluent into the system. Some things have changed. Medford stopped discharging sewage into the creek in 1973 and orchardists have curbed the amount of herbicides that flow into the creek. Jackson Street dam also is gone, along with the sludgy, gooey pond behind it, and civic groups regularly pick up the creek-side trash. "Three or four years ago, you'd find a grocery cart every 100 feet," Hutchins says during a survey of the creek's downtown Medford stretch this week. "Now, it's just a few carts per stretch. "I haven't come across anyone sleeping under the bridges," he says, "and I've found no bags of drugs so far this year." But some things have stayed the same. Ashland still discharges about 60 pounds of phosphorus -- or 30 times more than minimum state water-quality standards -- into Ashland Creek just a quarter-mile from its confluence with Bear Creek. From that point down, Bear Creek is a polluted stream. People still throw all sorts of garbage into the creek. And storm drains off city streets still flow right into salmon spawning grounds. "There's still that smell," Hutchins says. "That downtown, oily smell." But Hutchins, forever the optimist, sees enough good to feel encouraged about fixing the bad. Of all the improvements, perhaps the most significant is community optimism. "Up until five or six years ago, you wouldn't even talk about Bear Creek." That's when Hutchins took a federal Bureau of Reclamation contract to count spawning salmon, and their egg nests, along three one-mile stretches of Bear Creek weekly for three fall months. Trudging through the muck and gravel and riffles of the creek has given him an intimate knowledge of what is there -- including the rough-and-tumble chinook that continue to return despite innumerable obstacles. "It's taken a beating, and the fish still come back," Hutchins says. "Amazing." So amazed is Hutchins that he sees Bear Creek as transforming from a community liability to an asset by the end of the next decade. Ashland is making strides in reducing its discharges, and volunteer planting efforts such as the Rotary Club work last weekend will add shade to the creek and siphon off deadly chemicals in water runoff. And dozens of projects by community groups ranging from school kids to sport fishermen are knocking down hurdles effecting salmon. "Remember," Hutchins says, "I'm just one drop in this effort. I can visualize Bear Creek being a pristine stream flowing through downtown that businesses can turn to, rather than hide from it. I can picture picnic tables along the creek, where people can sit and watch the chinook spawn. "I think that would be neat," he says. "It can happen. But remember, I'm an optimist." (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] ) Outdoor Journal main page Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA