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Elk Creek Dam battle taken up a notch Fisheries report proposes restoring channel to save fish By Mark Freeman A new opinion that notching Elk Creek Dam is the only guarantee against harming threatened Rogue River salmon may become new ammunition in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers� five-year effort to alter the half-built structure it once fought to complete. A National Marine Fisheries Service report declares that cutting a 150-foot section out of the concrete dam and restoring the creek�s channel is the only alternative that will not jeopardize threatened coho salmon and other species using upstream spawning grounds. Since 1986, project has cost $110 million Elk Creek Dam was originally authorized as part of the Rogue Basin's trio of dams meant to control winter floods and release stored water in the summer to enhance Rogue fish habitat. Elk Creek Dam's original design called for it to hold a reservoir roughly the size of Applegate Lake, and cut off all fish migration at the dam. Construction began in 1986, but a court injunction over fishery and water-quality concerns halted construction in 1987. The Corps came back in 1989 with a plan to finish the dam but not to create a summer lake. The dam instead would have a hole in its base so Elk Creek could flow through it and fish could swim past it under most water conditions, but it could be used to curb flooding during high- water events. After continued resistance from environmental groups, the Corps decided in 1996 not to pursue the environmental studies needed to get a court injunction lifted. The move effectively left the project in limbo. If the dam had been finished as planned in the late '80s, the total bill would have come to $121 million � with slightly more than half for construction. Though January, the agency has spent almost $110 million on Elk Creek planning, construction and legal defenses, said Doug Clarke, the Corps' Elk Creek project manager. Furthermore, the fisheries service report concludes that the current program of trapping migrating adult salmon and steelhead at the dam and trucking them to upstream spawning sites is not a viable long-term solution, even if the facilities are upgraded. Corps managers, who once fought hard to get a flood-control dam on this upper Rogue tributary near Trail, will use this new opinion while they decide whether to ask Congress to begin the dam�s eventual mothballing � a program Corps officials call "long-term management of Elk Creek Dam in an uncompleted state" � as early as this fall. "We�ve always believed that notching is better biologically and cheaper than trapping and hauling," said Doug Clarke, the Corps� Elk Creek project leader. "Now, we have a scientific opinion from (the fisheries service) that will provide added justification for it." A separate Corps study concludes that notching the dam, at a cost of about $7 million, is about 40 percent cheaper than continuing to trap and haul the fish over the next 50 years � even when accountants add in about $8 million to rebuild the notch if the dam is eventually completed. The Corps has sought the dam-notching alternative since 1996, but has been blocked at the congressional level � first by Rep. Bob Smith, and lately by Rep. Greg Walden. The congressmen have added language into Corps funding bills requiring the agency to continue trapping and hauling fish around the dam site. So far this year, crews have trapped 30 wild chinook, about 700 wild coho, 55 wild steelhead and three wild cutthroat trout at the dam�s base and trucked them to upstream spawning grounds, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Jackson County Commissioner Ric Holt believes continued trapping and hauling � and not notching � is the only solution that keeps the integrity of the half-built dam in place for future finishing. Holt blasted the biological opinion Thursday, saying notching the dam will ruin the half-built structure that he says should be finished to provide stored water, flood control and even some hydroelectric power for Rogue Valley residents. "With all the needs we�re looking at here in the future, why do this?" Holt asked. "It doesn�t make sense. The human factors should play some part in this thing." Bob Hunter, a staff attorney for WaterWatch of Oregon and a longtime Elk Creek Dam opponent, said the fisheries service report makes clear that the Corps and Congress will need to notch the dam or risk violating the Endangered Species Act. "This should be enough," Hunter said. "But whether it will be enough � who can predict that? It�s early on in a new administration. Hopefully, they�ll do the right thing." But the fisheries service opinion, dated Jan. 23, does not make notching a foregone conclusion. Clarke said the Corps� specific Elk Creek Dam recommendation to Congress for funding in 2002 will not be released until spring, after the options are debated internally among Corps officials and run past the Bush administration. 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 � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.