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Lack of funding sends Butte Falls Hatchery to scrap heap MT file photo Todd Boughton cleans a fish pond at Butte Falls Hatchery. By MARK FREEMAN BUTTE FALLS -- Alan Ader had wide eyes and big plans when he took over management of the old, weary Butte Falls Hatchery last summer. Upgrading fish-rearing ponds that date to 1915, renovating the old employee residences that have barely changed since World War II, and improving drive-in access to this site of Oregon's third-oldest fish hatchery were just some of Ader's ideas. But chief on his wish-list for the 21st century was transforming the 84-year-old hatchery into a backwoods destination for visitors to learn about Oregon's fish-making history, a place to absorb what it's like growing the public's 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," Ader said in September. "It'll be a long, long road to get it up to top-notch shape. But that's my goal." Less than three months later, Ader's road has reached a dead end. The cash-strapped Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will all but halt growing fish at the Butte Falls Hatchery this summer, transferring most of its fish-rearing responsibilities to other Southwest Oregon hatcheries. Ader and Todd Boughton, Ader's main assistant, likewise will be transferred to other hatcheries in Oregon. The cash shortfall, which is as much as $5 million statewide, stems primarily from cost-of-living raises for its employees, over-projections in license sales and a lag in receiving federal dollars. In the past, the state's Wildlife Fund bank account has helped offset these cash-flow problems. But the fund, which was about $10 million a decade ago, has been siphoned down to less than $1 million, and the agency is moving now to recoup those losses. By next summer, the old-growth Douglas fir that frame the Butte Falls Hatchery will shade old ponds with only a token amount of fingerling trout and one caretaker who will feed the fish and keep an eye on the grounds. The old hatchery, it seems, will go out a martyr so other, younger, bigger hatcheries can live on. "We don't have enough money to operate everything," says Bob Mullen, the ODFW's Southwest Regional supervisor in Roseburg. "It's an old hatchery. It has some long-term costs to bring it up to where it's a good long-term facility. Of the hatcheries we had to choose from, that's why we offered up "And right now," Mullen says, "we don't have any idea when we'll get any money to re-open it." Ader, who turned down top jobs at other Oregon hatcheries last summer for Butte Falls, declines to comment on the cuts. Joyc Hailicka, a Butte Falls community activist, isn't so genteel. "I'm just sick about it," Hailicka says. "Budget cuts are no excuse for not developing it. It's old, but that doesn't mean you can just scratch it off." But scratching off the hatchery doesn't necessarily mean scratching off the fish it raises. ODFW managers will meet next week to figure out how to spread out to other regional hatcheries many of the 860,000 fish the Butte Falls hatchery raises annually. The hatchery feeds Howard Prairie lakes with 185,000 trout, and the Coquille and Umpqua rivers with fall chinook and coho salmon. Its budget is about $180,000 a year. "Just because Butte Falls is the one getting cut doesn't mean those fish at Butte Falls are the least priority in the region," Mullen says. The hatchery might not be a top funding priority, but it has earned a place in Oregon's steep 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. Unlike other state-funded hatcheries in Bandon and near Port Orford, the Butte Falls Hatchery has no fish returning to it. Instead, its fish come in the form of eggs spawned from fish collected elsewhere. When Ader took over as manager, he began laying the groundwork for a state-funded renovation that would cost about $600,000. But now is a bad time to be looking for money within the ODFW. The agency has to absorb about $2.2 million from a 2 percent cost-of-living raise for its employees, Mullen says. Also, the lag in receiving federal funds for hatchery operations causes a strain on ODFW reserves. And over-guessing how many licenses the agency would sell this year further dips into the cash. With virtually nothing left in the ODFW's savings account, the agency is cutting costs, says Doug DeHart, the ODFW's chief of fisheries. The cuts will put about $3 million back into the depleted Wildlife Fund over the next two years, with plans for adding more to it in the future. Cutting the Butte Falls program will save about $150,000 a year, Mullen says. The agency also will not fill one open full-time position in Charleston, and trim one half-time position each for Gold Beach and Central Point, Mullen says, with no one losing jobs and responsibilities getting absorbed elsewhere. The Butte Falls cuts will likely last until at least July 2001, Mullen says. Strangely, the hatchery's ambitious renovation plans sparked by Ader are not completely off the board. "We still want to do it," Mullen says. "We think it's a neat little place." But the same reasons for cutting the hatchery in the short term also make it a long shot for Butte Falls to regain its stature among Oregon hatcheries. Mullen is not quite ready to pull all life support and declare the Butte Falls Hatchery dead, but he sounds like a man already working on its eulogy. "I'm not quite that pessimistic, but it's hard to remain optimistic," Mullen says. "We'll explore other funding options because we know it's important to the (Butte Falls) community. "It might not ever be our number one hatchery," he says. "But it's a really unique hatchery and we'll continue to look for ways to try to keep it open." (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] ) Outdoor Journal main page Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA