Document text
Backwoods hatchery Butte Falls facility shows its age but it still has class By MARK FREEMAN BUTTE FALLS -- Glance around the Butte Falls Hatchery, and the signs of age that befall any 84-year-old facility are readily apparent. But look past the dingy buildings, rumpled cement rearing ponds and a poor water intake system and you discover a piece of Oregon fish-management history nestled in a stand of majestic firs along a mountain stream. Alan Ader sees not only the hatchery's good and bad, but also its future as a backwoods destination for visitors to learn about Oregon's fish-rearing history and absorb what it's like to grow fish in the mountains. "If you don't look at the facility for how it appears now, but for its value and potential, then you see it as I see it," says Ader, the hatchery's new manager. "Kids can come here, throw a handful of fish food in a pond and see the rainbows splashing around, (and) they just love it," Ader says. "They go home with a good experience, and it makes us feel good about what we do." As the newest manager of one of Oregon's oldest hatcheries, the 44-year-old Ader hopes to shepherd a major remodeling of the hatchery and make it more attractive to visitors. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has identified $600,000 worth of work at the site, ranging from installing vinyl siding on aging buildings to rebuilding concrete fish ponds dating to 1915. Other work includes improving the road access into the hatchery just east of Butte Falls. The improvements would do more than help hatchery workers grow the 860,000 fish they stock into area lakes and rivers annually, hatchery workers say. It would help lure more Medford-area residents to this mountain hamlet. "If we can get good access and beautify the facilities more, we'd improve that customer service (the ODFW) keeps talking about," says Todd Doughton, a hatchery technician. "This place could be outrageous," he says. The place is steeped in Oregon fish-rearing history. Built in 1915, it was one of the original Oregon Game Commission hatcheries constructed to raise salmon, steelhead and trout for stocking in lakes and rivers. It almost closed during hatchery cutbacks in 1992 but survived to continue a scaled back program. The hatchery raises fall chinook and coho salmon for release into the Coquille River, coho for the Umpqua River system, all the small rainbows stocked each spring in Howard Prairie Lake east of Ashland, and 185,000 8- to 10-inch rainbow trout for stocking across southwest Oregon. Its budget is about $180,000 a year. Though relatively small, its infusion of fish keeps the region's anglers busy. "In a way, this hatchery is the spoke that keeps the wheels of the whole southwest region going," Doughton says. Ader comes to Butte Falls from Cole Rivers Hatchery, a $1 million-a-year facility that draws the lion's share of interest from the public. Unlike the Butte Falls Hatchery, where fertilized fish eggs are grown into small fish for release, Cole Rivers Hatchery gets the big chinook salmon returning to it -- and they pique visitors' interest. But Cole Rivers and other large hatcheries do not have the backwoods beauty of a place like Butte Falls. "It's right down in a beautiful forest draw surrounded by old-growth trees," Ader says. "It's really peaceful to sit out here on a bench, listen to the water and the breeze in the trees." But a stiff breeze could topple some of the structures if improvements are not done. Of the work identified at Butte Falls, most will likely be funded through Oregon's Fish Restoration and Enhancement Program, which funnels license dollars and commercial fishing fees to programs across Oregon. Butte Falls is, therefore, competing against programs statewide. "It'll be a long, long road to get it up to top-notch shape," Ader says. "But that's my goal." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA