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Will hatchery be history? Photo by Bob Pennell Butte Falls Hatchery manager Alan Ader and Butte Falls resident Joyce Hailicka are concerned about state fish and wildlife officials' plans to phase out the aging facility. Butte Falls woman seeks a use for site By MARK FREEMAN BUTTE FALLS -- Standing in a stiff winter rain, as caramel-colored water flows through aged pipes to reach the last batch of tiny salmon to call Butte Falls Hatchery home, Joyce Hailicka hopes she's not witnessing the end of history. Fish hatchery loss higher TRAIL -- More infant salmon died than previously estimated at Cole Rivers Hatchery when a water pump and alarm system failure on Thursday triggered the largest fish-kill in the hatchery's 28-year history. Hatchery workers have tallied the loss at 1,405,052 infant Rogue River spring chinook salmon. The loss is higher than early estimates of 1.3 million fish, and it represents 77 percent of the Rogue spring chinook eggs spawned at the hatchery this fall, says Matt Frank, the hatchery's foreman. That leaves just 421,828 infant spring chinook left. The hatchery normally releases about 1.62 million spring chinook annually into the Rogue, with the remaining fish going into nearby reservoirs. The young fish died when a water pump failed at the hatch house early Thursday morning, and the alarm system failed to alert sleeping hatchery workers. The failures likely stemmed from a power surge Wednesday following some routine maintenance work. The salmon are the last batch of coho that will grow up in the 85-year-old hatchery's concrete ponds, which will be relegated to light seasonal duty raising fish under a cost-cutting plan beginning this summer. At best, Hailicka wants the cash-strapped Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to reverse its plans for closing the hatchery for all but three spring months a year. At least, she wants the old site along Big Butte Creek turned into a museum, an interpretive center or a research facility -- anything to keep it from joining other resources and services to flee this mountain town with neither a stoplight nor a bar. "This hatchery has never felt like a luxury," says Hailicka, a Butte Falls booster. "It has always felt like a necessity. We feel a sense of responsibility keeping this hatchery operating. "It would be a shame to lose it." Hailicka and others who want the hatchery spared from the economic chopping block will get their say Thursday when ODFW leaders come to Butte Falls to discuss the hatchery's future. ODFW Director Jim Greer will meet with local officials and the public to discuss why the hatchery is tapped for phasing out and what role the hatchery plays in the future. The meeting will be at 1 p.m. at the U.S. Forest Service Conference Room in Butte Falls. "It's encouraging that they are coming up here," says Dan Murphy, who will be at the meeting. "I hope it's not a foregone conclusion." The agency has tapped the Butte Falls Hatchery -- which is the third-oldest hatchery in Oregon -- to be phased out of year-round fish production as part of a new round of cost-cutting plans to address current cash shortfalls. 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. Beginning this spring, the Butte Falls Hatchery will only operate March through May, raising 185,000 fingerling rainbow trout for planting in nearby reservoirs, says Bob Mullen, supervisor of the the ODFW's Southwest Region. The remaining 675,000 fish formerly raised in Butte Falls will be shifted to nearby Cole Rivers Hatchery this year. One hatchery worker has already transferred and one will stay on as a caretaker. A third, Manager Alan Ader, has resigned and will move to northern California and into private business instead of transferring elsewhere. So no one will lose a job from the plan, and no lake or river will suffer losses of hatchery fish. "Most people will say, oh, good, we're not looking at any loss of fish production," Mullen says. "But I don't think the people of Butte Falls will be impressed by that." Ader says he dislikes how his former agency is discarding a facility as steeped in Oregon fish-propagation history as Butte Falls Hatchery, essentially forcing it into retirement because of old age. "That's how it smacks," Ader says. "They're putting this hatchery out to pasture." But people like Hailicka have alternative ideas they want Greer's agency to explore with them. For instance, Hailicka would like to see the area turned into a museum highlighting Oregon's hatchery history, or lace it with interpretive sites that can make it a destination for visitors. She envisions it as a major cog in a four-mile walking interpretive tour of Butte Falls and the area that she and others are planning. Hailicka is forming a task force to find alternative uses for the hatchery that minimize the negative effects on Butte Falls. After a pump and alarm failure last week killed 1.4 million Rogue River spring chinook salmon infants at Cole Rivers Hatchery, keeping the local hatchery alive makes even more sense. Hailicka says. "It shows why they shouldn't put all their fish eggs in one basket, so to speak." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA