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Butte Falls Hatchery won't close if E-board OKs ODFW request MT file photo Butte Falls civic leader Joyce Hailicka, left, speaking with hatchery manager Alan Ader, wants year-round production to keep the hatchery a tourist draw and a continuing part of the area's rural culture. By MARK FREEMAN BUTTE FALLS -- The beleaguered Butte Falls Hatchery may win a reprieve from the financial chopping block and continue to raise fish for anglers at least through next summer. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will ask the Oregon Legislature next week for another $500,000, part of which would put the 85-year-old hatchery back in the business of raising coho and chinook salmon year-round for release in southwestern Oregon coastal streams. The money is actually part of the general fund recommended in Gov. John Kitzhaber's budget for ODFW hatchery programs last year, but it was withheld by legislators until the agency worked more on programs designed to further wild salmon restoration. A legislative committee recently has recommended that money be released to the agency, and department officials will ask the legislative Emergency Board to do that during an April 28 hearing in Salem. "It's not a done deal," says Bob Mullen, assistant supervisor of the ODFW's Southwest Region in Roseburg. "But if the E-Board gives us the money, some fish will go back to Butte Falls this year and next year." That level of fish-rearing would not put the hatchery at full capacity, but it would keep infant salmon in the facility's concrete ponds year-round. That meets a key concern of Butte Falls civic leaders such as Joyce Hailicka who want year-round production to keep the hatchery a tourist draw as well as a regular piece of the rural culture. "You can walk around the town and everyone has a story about this hatchery," Hailicka said. "Everybody wants to keep it open. "The type of fish and the number of fish is not as important as continuing to take advantage of this hatchery," she said. The ODFW is also working on a proposal that could mean long-term survival for the Butte Falls facility, which is Oregon's third oldest fish hatchery. Agency biologists have tapped Butte Falls as one of three potential "conservation hatcheries" planned for running a pilot program in Western Oregon next year. The so-called Conservation Hatchery Improvement Program, or CHIP, would compare and evaluate native and hatchery fish survival rates, the interaction of hatchery and wild fish, and study fish genetics, nutrition requirements and gene control. If CHIP is enacted, the Butte Falls Hatchery as well as the Fall Creek and Gnat Creek hatcheries would have to be retooled so the concrete ponds and raceways would more closely resemble natural rearing conditions. The program, which has an estimated $7.5 million price tag, has the backing of a state task force looking at salmon recovery. The program likely will be presented to the 2001 Legislature for possible funding, Mullen said. "It's a long ways from getting approved, but the Butte Falls Hatchery would benefit greatly from it," Mullen said. "It would, effectively, keep the hatchery open," he said. "We might be rearing different things, but at least we would keep it open." Dan Murphy, the city's postmaster, said he likes the idea but will believe it when he sees it. "Without it, though, I don't see much of a future" for the hatchery, Murphy said. The Butte Falls hatchery is one of the oldest state-run hatcheries in Oregon. It was scheduled to be phased out of year-round production this year. The agency last winter put the concrete ponds and hatch-house on part-time status to help cover a $5 million cash shortfall. If the interim money is approved, the ODFW this summer will ship about 270,000 infant coho and chinook salmon back to Butte Falls for rearing before eventual release into the Coquille and Umpqua river basins. Butte Falls Hatchery has reared fish for those basins for decades. The salmon are currently being reared at Cole Rivers Hatchery, where they will be marked and tagged before trucked to Butte Falls, hatchery Foreman Matt Frank said. The hatchery coho return as adults to the Umpqua, where they contribute to sport-fishermen's catches. The chinook, as adults, contribute to sport and commercial harvest in the ocean as well as sport-fishing in the river. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA