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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW ENVIRONMENT No fish, no funding for problem dams Comment By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Posted Dec. 13, 2014 at 2:00 AM By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Posted Dec. 13, 2014 at 2:00 AM » Social News Wild salmon holds the trump card in the funding of three projects now underway to remove or notch abandoned dams on Rogue Valley streams. Wimer and Fielder dams on Evans Creek, as well as Jacksonville Dam on Jackson Creek, are in the midst of receiving state and federal permits for their removal as early as this summer. The Evans Creek projects are being shepherded by three environmental groups lining up grants to remove two members of Oregon's dubious Top-10 list of worst fish-passage impediments and improve the creek's status as a spawning and rearing tributary to the Rogue River. But that's not the case in Jacksonville, where the city has no wild salmon card to play toward funding the removal of its 102-year-old earthen dam, deemed a safety hazard. Consequently, the city so far has found no financial partners in the project. "There's not a fish cause," City Administrator Jeff Alvis says. "You'd think there would be something (for removing) something that's a high hazard," Alvis says. "You'd think the state would step up with this thing." Fielder Dam spans the creek outside the town of Rogue River and 3.3 miles from its confluence with the Rogue River, while Wimer Dam is seven miles farther upstream. Both are abandoned irrigation diversions on private land. Both dams have poorly designed fish ladders that don't meet state or federal standards for allowing migrating fall chinook, threatened coho salmon or summer and winter steelhead to pass over them during spawning migration times. "Fielder Dam is pretty much the end of the road for fall chinook in Evans Creek," says Brian Barr, aquatic habitat program manager for the Ashland-based Geos Institute, which has partnered with WaterWatch of Oregon and American Rivers on the project. "Removing both dams opens 16 miles of extremely good spawning habitat." Expanding usable salmon habitat is key for garnering the almost $700,000 needed to remove both dams and restore the stream channels around them, Barr says. The projects collectively are up for a $462,845 grant from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, which metes out Oregon Lottery projects to benefit wild salmon habitat. If approved, that money will leverage another $213,000 in federal Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grants to round out funding, Barr says. Jacksonville's project has an estimated cost of about $767,000, but so far the city has only about $200,000 left over from a land sale earmarked for the project, says volunteer Tony Hess, a retired mining engineer helping the city with the project. Built in 1912, the dam and the reservoir it created provided the city's drinking water source until Jacksonville tapped into the Medford Water Commission in the early 1950s, Hess says. In 1999, the Oregon Water Resources Department's Dam Safety Division classified it as a high hazard for failing. Plans are to notch it, restore the creek channel and plant nearly 10,000 native plants to fortify the banks. But Jackson Creek's salmon migration is blocked at a culvert under Hanley Road some six miles downstream, says Dan VanDyke, the Rogue District fish biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Historically, migrating salmon and steelhead likely did not go much past the dam site, VanDyke says. That makes the project dead in the water at places such as OWEB, Hess says. "There's no (fish) benefit," Hess says. "It's tough getting those grants. There's a lot of competition." The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is taking public comment on its proposed permits for allowing the projects to be completed during the summer window when working in salmon streams is allowed. Barr says the goal is to remove Fielder and Wimer dams sequentially as early as July and August, but which one goes first has not been decided. Both are 20 feet tall, with Fielder Dam spanning 259 feet and Wimer Dam just 77 feet. "We haven't decided if we'll work in an upstream direction or a downstream direction," Barr says. Jacksonville's removal could be two or more years away, Alvis says. Hess says the city could seek an Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department grant for the $200,000 worth of tree planting and bank stabilization work because the dam and old reservoir are within the city's Forest Park. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470 or [email protected] . Follow him at www.twitter.com/MTwriterFreeman . By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Mark Freeman Mail Tribune Posted Dec. 13, 2014 at 2:00 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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