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Corps scraps notch Army Civil Works office orders an end to plans to cut passage for fish in the mothballed Elk Creek Dam By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune The Bush administration has scuttled plans to notch half-built Elk Creek Dam, telling federal engineers to find a new, permanent solution for getting wild salmon into Elk Creek's spawning grounds. Mike Parker, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Thursday to drop its plans to cut a notch in the dam's concrete base this summer so threatened wild coho and other fish can swim past it unimpeded. The Corps now will study whether an improved version of the 10-year-old program of trapping and trucking migrating salmon upstream can meet fish-protection standards required by the Endangered Species Act and a federal court injunction, Corps officials said Thursday. In a similar assessment in the early 1990s, federal biologists concluded that notching the dam was better than hauling fish around it. "Now we're going to assess other options for fish passage at the project and see if there are any other alternatives that make sense," Corps Project Manager Doug Clarke said. "We still don't have any plans to complete the project, but we'll be looking elsewhere for fish passage," he said. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., lobbied Parker to halt the Corps' planned $8 million notching because he and others believe that doing so will effectively kill the project. "I think this is a huge day, if you're a supporter of preserving Elk Creek Dam or finishing it," Walden said. "I think, politically and emotionally, that notching would be such a huge step backward that you'd never really recover from it." Elk Creek Dam opponents, such as attorney Bob Hunter of WaterWatch of Oregon, said forgoing the planned notching likely will violate the Endangered Species Act requirements for protecting threatened coho and represents a step back in salmon-enhancement efforts. "I think it's unfortunate that politicians are not really serious about salmon restoration and that certainly seems to apply to the Bush administration," Hunter said. A National Marine Fisheries Service opinion states that notching the dam is the only guarantee against jeopardizing the threatened coho, and Hunter said he expects environmental groups to consider lawsuits forcing the Corps to follow that. "What we have here is an unfinished dam that's doing nothing except harming fish," Hunter said. "I think people will be looking at legal remedies." Parker's order is the latest in a lengthy saga over plans to enhance flood control and acquire stored water by damming the Rogue River, Elk Creek and the Applegate River. Lost Creek (on the Rogue) and Applegate dams were completed and operate with reservoirs, but Elk Creek's construction was halted by lawsuits in 1988. The Corps later considered finishing the dam but operating it without a reservoir, then dumped that option in 1995. Since then, the partially built dam has been managed as if it were mothballed for possible completion as far off as 50 years or more. But some local support remains not only for keeping the structure intact, but also finishing it with a full reservoir as first envisioned more than 40 years ago. Since 1992, the Corps has financed a program to trap and haul the migrating adult salmon and steelhead around the dam, relying on a fish trap built to capture the last of the runs set to be wiped out by the dam. "We've kind of scabbed the thing together to keep using it," said biologist Mike Evenson of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, which is paid $150,000 annually by the Corps to do the fish trapping and hauling. When the trapping started, only 40 wild adult coho were trucked upstream. Last fall, more than 1,500 wild coho - which are third-generation fish whose grandparents and parents also were trapped and hauled - were trucked past the dam. "I guess we could continue to do this indefinitely," Evenson said. "But the system certainly is not designed for that." Clarke said his agency will start work on a new trap-and-haul design this year, and will consult with state and federal fish biologists in the process. Clarke said one notch opponent named by Parker as influential in leading to the shift in plans was Jackson County Commissioner Ric Holt, who lobbied Parker on Dec. 21 in Washington. Holt said Thursday that his trip, which he said cost the county more than $2,000, was originally intended to persuade Parker to suspend the notching another year. Holt never figured he would help topple the Corps' plans completely. "While talking to Parker, I could see fire in his eyes, so I had a glimmer of hope," Holt said. "I'm extremely happy just not to blow the thing up," Holt said. "The battle's over, so let's all be friends and work toward the future." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.