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Hatchery at Butte Falls gets to keep working By MARK FREEMAN BUTTE FALLS - The state's tired and aging fish hatchery here will not be retired this summer after all, thanks to a push by some legislators to keep fish-raising programs intact for the next two years. The $213.5 million Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife budget that wiggled Wednesday out of the Oregon Legislature includes enough money to keep the Butte Falls Hatchery open through summer 2003. The 86-year-old hatchery, one of the oldest in Oregon, was set to join the Rock Creek Hatchery along the North Umpqua and the Trask River Hatchery in Tillamook County as facilities targeted for closure in earlier budget proposals. But all three were restored in the budget after clamors from Rep. Susan Morgan, R-Myrtle Creek, and other legislators. Morgan said Thursday that the ODFW and the Legislature will look into developing an overall management policy for the state's hatchery system over the next two years. "It didn't seem very judicious to rush into closing hatcheries until the agency had an overall policy on where it's going to go with those hatcheries," said Morgan. News of the hatchery's reprieve pleased many residents of Butte Falls, which has struggled economically since its signature industry - logging - has virtually disappeared from the area. "When you see a town struggle for its existence, how much can they take?" postmaster Dan Murphy said. "This means we'll have it for two more years, but it doesn't guarantee the future." The hatchery is used to rear fall chinook and coho salmon bound for the Coos and Coquille rivers of southwest Oregon, along with rainbow trout stocked in Hyatt and Howard Prairie lakes in Jackson County and Galesville Reservoir in Douglas County. In all, about 700,000 fish are spawned in other state-run hatcheries and sent to Butte Falls to be reared on the bottle-quality water of Big Butte Creek before they are trucked away and released. "Those are real critical, important fish," said Cole Rivers Hatchery Manager Randy Robart, who has overseen the Butte Falls program recently. "And Butte Falls has always been the most logical place to raise them." But the hatchery is in dire need of repairs, with a new fish screen for its water intake a top priority because the current screen has hurt or killed some of Big Butte Creek's wild cutthroat trout, Robart said. Other physical problems there include a leaky water intake pipe and concrete fish ponds that are so degraded that half are currently unusable, Robart said. In all, the hatchery needs well over $1 million worth of renovations, and there currently is no money in the budget for them, Robart said. If the renovations aren't made, Robart said, "then we'll be right back to where we were last year, saying Butte Falls is a logical hatchery to close." The hatchery was set to be closed last summer, but residents joined with ODFW managers in successfully lobbying the Legislature for money that kept the hatchery going through last week. It also was on tap for retirement throughout most of the current legislative session as efforts by the ODFW to trim its general-fund budget called for closing the three hatcheries - including the Rock Creek Hatchery, which raises fish for the Umpqua River system that is the home stream to Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Roseburg physician and fly-fishing devotee. But legislators such as Morgan made it clear to the agency that its budget must include full funding for the hatchery program. Currently, one technician and a laborer are tending to the fish being reared at the hatchery, Robart said. The agency will first hire a full-time manager, who would then hire the two technicians to round out the facility's crew, he said. All three will be required to live at ODFW housing at the hatchery site, Robart said. 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.