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Army says no dam notch By BILL KETTLER and SARAH LEMON Mail Tribune Spawning salmon and steelhead will travel up Elk Creek in trucks one more year. Plans to notch the uncompleted Elk Creek Dam to allow salmon and steelhead to swim upstream have been suspended for at least one year. "I think it's a win-win situation for the people, a win-win for the fish and for our future water needs," said Jackson County Commissioner Ric Holt. Dallas Boyd, in Rep. Greg Walden's Washington, D.C. office, said Wednesday that Mike Parker, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, has decided that for this year, at least, the dam will not be notched. Contacted at 10 p.m. Washington time, Boyd could not say whether the decision was based on funding priorities or philosophical issues. Holt met with Parker and other Army officials for about an hour in Washington on Friday. Holt said he showed a video that explained how ludicrous it would be to blow up a $20 million project. Parker called Holt at about 6 p.m. Wednesday with the news that the dam would not be notched. Holt, who was standing in a Wal-Mart check-out line when he took the call on a cellular phone, said he broke into tears. "The people won," he said. Yet keeping the dam in place isn't the best "economic or biological alternative," said Bob Hunter, an attorney for Water Watch, an Oregon-based river conservation group. "It's a shame that free passage for spawning salmon in an important tributary is again delayed," Hunter said. Congress and the Bush administration approved $2 million in November to notch the dam. Construction was halted on the dam in 1987 after fishing and environmental groups concerned about the impact on the fishery, filed a lawsuit seeking further environmental studies. In 1987, the Corps proposed notching the dam, a partial demolition that would allow fish passage but preserve the rest of the dam should it be needed later, Corps officials said. Since that time, crews have been trapping salmon and steelhead at the base of the dam and trucking them upstream to reach spawning habitat. The trap-haul system costs about $150,000 annually. Hunter said his agency will still push to get the dam notched, an action that would not prevent the structure's completion if it was needed. But it's not needed now, he said. The dam was authorized by Congress in 1962 part of the three-dam Rogue Basin flood control project. Stored water was to be used for municipal, agricultural and recreational purposes. The Ohbayashi Corp. of Japan began work on the dam under a $62.8 million contract. However, the Corps later estimated the total costs - including land acquisition and road construction - would be $119 million. After construction was discontinued, Ohbayashi received the full $62.8 million for its work on the half-finished project. In a 1994 cost study, the Corps estimated it would cost an additional $68 million to complete the structure, and an estimated $110 million has been spent on design, construction and legal fees for the project. Water is currently allowed to pass through the base of the dam via a pipe, but officials say the current is too strong to allow migration of threatened coho salmon. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.