Document text
Corps: Notch remains possible The agency is to review all options for fish passage at Elk Creek Dam By MARK FREEMAN The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers softened its position Friday on Elk Creek Dam, saying the planned notching of the half-built structure is still an option for getting wild salmon past it. Corps project leaders in Portland said they mistakenly believed that a Bush administration official ordered the agency to drop its 5-year-old plan to notch the dam and look elsewhere for ways to get wild fish into Elk Creek basin spawning grounds. The order, from Undersecretary of the Army Mike Parker, actually calls for a full agency review of the notching plans as well as other potential options for satisfying fish-passage requirements while the dam sits uncompleted, said Doug Clarke, the Corps' Elk Creek Dam project leader. To allow for that review, plans to notch the dam this summer have been deferred, not dropped as Clarke originally believed, he said. "We had a misunderstanding, and I don't know where it occurred," Clarke said Friday. "We thought (Parker) had completed his review, and that is not the case." Clarke took responsibility for Thursday's misinterpretation of Parker's ruling. The softened stance on the dam-notching deflated Jackson County Commissioner Ric Holt, who believed Clarke's comments Thursday signified the end of a lengthy fight against the notching. "I was happy that we finally worked all this stuff out, but now I'm dumbfounded again," Holt said Friday. "I guess we got to keep going." The Corps had planned to cut and blast a V-like notch in the dam's base as a way to leave the dam unfinished but viable for future completion. The notch would allow Elk Creek to flow unimpeded through the site, and allow the creek's native fish - especially wild coho salmon, which is listed as a threatened species - passage to and from upstream spawning grounds. Holt and others believe that notching would damage the structural integrity of the remaining concrete and effectively kill future attempts at finishing the dam. Corps studies conclude the current hole at the dam's base does not impede the downstream migration of juvenile salmon, but it also does not afford adult fish upstream access during high-flow periods when the salmon are most apt to migrate. For the past decade, the agency has trapped migrating adult fish at the dam's base and trucked them about a mile upstream before releasing them. Corps officials believe they can design a permanent trap-and-haul program that meets legal thresholds for threatened coho protection, but the agency has not yet done that. Parker's ruling puts the Corps' notch plan back under the spotlight, a move that Holt believes will open the door for a closer probe into other fish-passage alternatives that leave the dam intact. "I know there's a right answer out there," Holt said, "and blowing that dam up isn't it." The Corps has about $2 million in its budget earmarked by Congress last fall to proceed with the notching, which will cost about $8 million. Clarke said that plan will be deferred until the review is completed as ordered by Parker, but there was no schedule or timetable known Friday for that review. 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.