ACT TO RESTORE ROGUE RIVER SALMON!
W A T E R W A T C H, 26.10.2007 15:29
ACT TO RESTORE ROGUE RIVER SALMON!
SUPPORT THE CORPS PLAN TO NOTCH ELK CREEK DAM
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers just issued a draft Supplemental Environmental Assessment proposing to remove a portion of the uncompleted Elk Creek Dam to provide upstream and downstream fish passage through the dam. The draft, entitled Elk Creek Project Fish Passage Corridor, is available at: www.nwp.usace.army.mil/pm/e/en_plan_assess.asp . The construction of Elk Creek Dam was halted by litigation in 1986. The partially completed dam blocks fish passage on Elk Creek, a very important salmon and steelhead producing tributary of the Rogue River. A strong showing of support for the Corps’s notching proposal is needed to keep it on track.
Read More and Do This Important ACTION ITEM
Help Restore Salmon
ACTION NEEDED: Please submit comments on the draft Supplemental Environmental Assessment by November 5, 2007 supporting the proposed action to provide a fish passage corridor through the dam. Comments should be mailed to:
Mr. Kim Larson
District Engineer
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers District, Portland
ATTN: CENWP-PM-E
Portland, Oregon 97208-2946
In your response you must refer to: Fish Passage Corridor. Elk Creek Project, Jackson County, Oregon, Public Notice # CENWP-PM-E issued October 5, 2007.
Some points to make in support of notching are:
1. Notching is the most economically and biologically sound method of providing fish passage at the partially completed structure.
2. Elk Creek is important habitat for summer and winter steelhead, coho salmon, and cutthroat trout. Twenty-five miles of spawning habitat is blocked by the existing dam structure.
3. Coho salmon in the Rogue River are listed as a “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. Elk Creek is one of the most important spawning tributaries in the Rogue Basin for coho salmon.
4. Notching is the only alternative for fish passage that the National Marine Fisheries Service found would avoid jeopardy of ESA listed coho salmon.
5. Trapping and hauling fish around the dam is more expensive than notching, even if one adds in the cost of refilling the notch in the future.
6. A trap and haul program also still puts the fish at risk. Fish are delayed at the trap, reject the trap, are injured during handling, fall back through the dam and are trapped between the dam and the weir that guides fish into the trap, and during high flows fish get over the weir and are trapped.
7. Though there is no need for the dam, notching can be done without harming the integrity of the remaining structure and does not preclude completion of the dam in the future.
8. Elk Creek Dam is not needed in the foreseeable future. The US Army Corps of Engineers has indicated that if completed it would be operated as a dry reservoir.
9. Completion of Elk Creek is fiscally irresponsible and environmentally unsound. It has been an economic boondoggle from the start, and if completed its operation would harm the Rogue River and its fish, and flood an important elk and deer overwintering area.
10. The lands above the dam should be managed to protect and restore fish, elk and deer habitat.
It is also important for the Governor and legislators to know of your support for notching.
PLEASE SEND COPIES OF YOUR COMMENTS TO:
Governor Kulongoski
160 State Capitol
900 Court Street
Salem, Oregon 97301-4047
Rep. Peter DeFazio
405 East 8th Ave. #2030
Eugene, OR 97401
Rep. Greg Walden
843 East Main Street, Ste 400
Medford, OR 97504
Senator Ron Wyden
516 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington D.C. 20510
Senator Gordon Smith
404 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington D.C. 20510-3704
For additional information contact Bob Hunter of WaterWatch at 
bob@waterwatch.org.
WATERWATCH web site: 
http://Waterwatch.org
Rivers Need Water. WaterWatch protects and restores natural streamflows in Oregon rivers for fish, wildlife and people who depend on healthy rivers.
