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http://www.omniture.com --> Sections Home Page Local News AP News Archives Business Classifieds Event Calendar Forums Life Opinion Obituaries Photo Gallery Since We Asked Sports Tempo Weather Special Coverage 2006 Britt Festivals --> Shop Our Valley AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Search Our Valley Special Sections Homelife Magazine Joy Magazine Readers Choice 2006 Oregon Golf Info Oregon Wine Info Our Valley Other Publications Local Links Ashland News eSouthernOregon Newspapers In Education Personals Moving Here Movie Listings TV Listings Volunteer Customer Service Advertise With Us Media Kit Place Classified Ad Contact Us FAQ's Home Delivery Site Map --> Email Story to a Friend July 7, 2006 Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Chuck Fustish says removing this abandoned dam on Lazy Creek in Bear Creek Park could open up refuge for infant salmon and steelhead during winter storms. (Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell) Shelter from the storm By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune An abandoned concrete dam hidden in the brush at Bear Creek Park does little more than afford transients a cool and quiet camping spot along a little tributary known as Lazy Creek. If Chuck Fustish and Craig Harper have their way, the five-foot-tall dam will no longer stand in the way of wild salmon and steelhead that could begin using Bear Creek Park and chunks of east Medford as a winter refuge from storms. Fustish, a state fish biologist, and Harper, who is the natural resources program manager for the Rogue Valley Council of Governments, hope to have the dam removed, notched or fitted with a fish ladder that can help wild salmon earn regular passage up Lazy Creek. Doing so could open as much as a mile of Lazy Creek to regular use as early as next year. "We're fighting and scrapping for everything we can get," says Fustish, who works out of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Central Point office. "Urbanization is taking it away faster than we can restore it. So anything we can recover is something." Harper plans to seek a state or federal grant for the project, which also could include fish-friendly improvements to two culverts that funnel Lazy Creek beneath the Bear Creek Greenway and Highland Avenue. No design or financial estimates have been done, Harper says. Coupled with past and future tree plantings by the city of Medford to improve its riparian zone, Lazy Creek could become a showcase for how urban streams can front homes and house salmon simultaneously, Harper says. "That could be a good creek to focus on, if we get these fish impediments out," Harper says. "This looks like it could be a really nice spot." Lazy Creek is just one of dozens of tributaries that flow into Bear Creek that can be used by the basin's wild salmon and steelhead at critical times in their life cycles, Fustish says. Some, like Ashland Creek in Ashland and Larson Creek south of Barnett Road in Medford, can serve as spawning grounds for wild salmon and steelhead. But many small, seemingly innocuous streams such as Lazy Creek — and even Baby Bear Creek that flows through Bear Creek Park's play structure — can provide refuge for infant salmon during winter storms and intense flows. Trapping in nearby Larson Creek shows how salmon and steelhead drop into, and out of, these creeks when necessary. "They need places to go to get away from rolling boulders and all that flow," Fustish says. "This could be one of those refuges." With the dam removed or altered for easy passage, fish could regularly hide in as much as a mile of Lazy Creek where it zigzags through Bear Creek Park, past the Human Bean coffee stand parking lot on Barnett Road and among a series of housing developments before it disappears underground near the intersection of Siskiyou Boulevard and Black Oak Drive. Though this creek stretch sports little of the fine gravels used for spawning, some limited spawning could occur there during fall and winter, Fustish says. "I wouldn't put it past steelhead," Fustish says. "They spawn in Larson Creek and this is probably comparable, once you get fish past that dam." Already, the lower end of Lazy Creek is home to juvenile steelhead and cutthroat trout, also a native species. An August 2005 survey found both in the area just downstream of the old dam. Just when that dam was built and why remains a mystery. Medford Parks Department officials don't know its origin and it doesn't appear on any ODFW diversion maps. "I've been here 23 years and it's never come up before," city parks planner Pete Young says. "It's just been there." It also does not divert water anywhere specific, just backing up the stream a few hundred feet and creating a waterfall visible to Greenway joggers who bother to look. It spans the creek just east of the Greenway and is pockmarked with camps erected by transients to take advantage of the cool water and isolation. Beneath it is a hodgepodge of discarded concrete chunks, possibly placed to curb erosion of a downstream bank. "If that's what they did, then they overdid it a bit," Fustish says. The structure appears similar to a 1920s-era impoundment recently removed from Foots Creek near Gold Hill. That small structure included 15 tons of thick concrete and sported railroad rails imbedded in it. "They didn't spare any concrete when they made this baby," Harper says. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] . Advertisement s Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback online casinos news Home Security Systems California Casinos Men's Clothing Southern Oregon Loans --> GMAT Prep Fundraisers Send Flowers Entertainment Guide --> Casinos Canada Trunks, Footlocker Online Casino Reviews