By Ann Vileisis
Elk River Hatchery Expansion Plan Update
In the last Storm Petrel and HOOT OUT, I reported on the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW)’s plan to expand Elk River Hatchery to raise potentially hundreds of thousands more fish from different rivers. A fire at Rock Creek Hatchery (on the North Umpqua River) plus spiraling costs for food and electricity and prospects of climate change are now compelling ODFW to look for ways to raise more fish at fewer hatcheries—and so, to put it bluntly, they have identified our very special Elk River as the place to balance their budget.
To address this threat, I made two trips to Salem in November. I testified on behalf of KAS at a public hearing about “hatchery resilience.” I also made an appointment to speak directly with Dr. Shaun Clements, Deputy Director for Inland Fisheries, about the issue. I highlighted the decades of conservation work that have helped to make Elk River such a special place as well as millions of dollars of restoration projects now underway in the Elk River watershed, with the aim of benefiting our local, self-sustaining salmon and steelhead runs.
I also expressed concern that expanding hatchery operations would potentially degrade the values of Elk River. Our South Coast rivers flow very low in late summer –local salmon are adapted to this –but with climate change, margins may be growing narrower. Already the Elk River Hatchery uses more than 20 cubic feet per second (cfs) of the river’s flow –and in late summer, the river’s flow has been dropping down to 38 cfs. That means during a critical time, more than half the river is already diverted through the hatchery. The river downstream of the hatchery already is considered to be impaired for temperature during summer so adding any thermal load to the hatchery effluent would be highly concerning because the juvenile fall Chinook need cold water in the lower river for summer rearing. The population of local Elk River fall Chinook fell below critical status last year, as did local SONCC coho, and so we need to keep our eyes on the prize of protecting what we have.
However, despite these concerns (which ODFW doesn’t seem to think merit consideration), the agency had already made its decision to proceed with expansion, without any outreach to the community. Because information about the plan (on the ODFW website) had been fragmented, disjointed, and even incorrect, local residents and neighbors on Elk River, in coordination with the South Coast Watershed Council, invited Dr. Clements down to Port Orford to provide the community with more specific information about the project. At a meeting held at Port Orford Library on January 9, nearly 100 local people showed up. Thanks to all KAS members who attended! The Q&A format moderated by Nate Radcliffe (Elk River representative on the South Coast Watershed Council) provided ODFW an opportunity to explain its project and to perhaps allay some concerns, but as many of you observed with frustration –not all questions were answered and there was no opportunity for actual dialogue. At the meeting’s end, the extent of the project remained unclear, and there was a sense that ODFW wasn’t particularly interested in public input. This was unfortunate.
Meanwhile, the Elk River Hatchery expansion project did go out to bid in December, but bids came in too high for the monies that had been allotted ($850k). So, at this point, ODFW has tucked its work to “expand ponds” (note the euphemism for concrete) at Elk River Hatchery into the Governor’s Budget, now headed to the Oregon Legislature, which, this year, will be faced with all manner of budget crises. Governor Kotek has prioritized spending on housing, education, and mental health, and so the conservation agencies—Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), State Parks (OPRD, State Lands (DSL)—will be strapped to carry on their basic services. ODFW has also proposed to strip out basic monitoring that is needed to manage native fisheries in order to make budget. There are many larger factors swirling around, and I am still trying to figure out our best next steps, so I will keep you posted.
Northwest Forest Plan Amendments
Old-growth forests are among our region’s most iconic and cherished landscapes, and so it’s concerning that the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has proposed an amendment that could substantially weaken the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP). First adopted in 1994, the NWFP resulted from a science-based, landscape scale planning effort that aimed to end the Timber Wars of the 1980s –a time when ramped-up logging was leveling the last five percent of our region’s old growth forests putting the birds, fish, and wildlife that live in these forests at grave risk of extinction, sparking massive protests and unrest. The Spotted Owl was the posterchild/ scapegoat of this effort, but the NWFP also protected murrelets, tree voles, martens, steelhead and coho –plus all manner of other forest denizens from lichens to salamanders. In addition, protecting old growth was a climate solution before its time, sequestering carbon in the boles of big old trees, and it turns out that big old trees are an important component for health of aquatic ecosystems, providing structure and cover, while forests also serve as sponge and filter for watersheds, helping to assure high water quality and flows year-round. In the thirty years since the NWFP’s adoption, climate and biodiversity concerns have only grown, making continued protection and recruitment of mature and old-growth forests ever more important.
However, recent massive wildfires resulting from drought and global warming have resulted in public and political pressure for the USFS to now make reducing fire risk its top priority. What exactly does that look like? In today’s polarized political realm, there seem to be two primary poles of response—aggressive forest management (logging, heavy thinning, and salvage) versus a strategic focus on thinning/prescribed burning of previously managed stands in the wildland urban interface (WUI) zone, and on preventative home hardening. There is, of course, a lot more nuance, and it’s important to recognize that different types of forest –especially in our Siskiyou National Forest backyard—are subject to different fire regimes and micro climates that can heavily affect how wildfires might behave.
In addition to fire risks, the USFS proposed amendment aims also to address the need for greater tribal engagement. Eighty tribal nations have ancestral territory within the NWFP area but were never consulted on the original plan. The amendment also states a need for more timber production (no doubt owing to heavy lobbying from the timber industry). The USFS published its Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) in November, and comments on proposed NWFP amendments are due on March 17. It is a major disappointment that the Biden Administration did not complete this amendment process they started before the Trump Administration took office. President Trump, who famously promoted the need to “rake” forest floors to reduce fire risk, has a decidedly aggressive forest management approach in mind—so it will be extremely important for Pacific Northwest wildlife conservationists and public lands enthusiasts to participate in the NWFP amendment process.
One troubling provision of the proposed amendment entails changing the definition of old growth—from trees that are 80 years old to trees that are 120-years old. The conservation group Oregon Wild estimates that this change could open ~800,000 acres of forest to logging –and these are trees already well on their way to providing mature structure needed by wildlife, already sequestering carbon, and already the most fire resistant. The survival of forest wildlife depends on increasing mature forest habitat in the future, but this change will almost certainly prevent trees from ever growing over 80 years except in reserved zones–and to what end?
In general, the plan amendment puts forth three alternatives and a no action alternative –one that is ostensibly conservation oriented (C), one that is extraction oriented (D) and one that is purportedly somewhere in the middle (B), but from my initial read, it looks like the options are rigged, such that the conservation option appears to markedly increase fire risk to communities –so who would ever choose that? The cynical view is that the proposed amendment exploits everyone’s fear of wildfire to advance an extractive aim of doubling – and potentially tripling – commercial logging from current levels. This would be the worst possible outcome for wildlife habitat, carbon sequestration, and climate resilience, and it’s not clear how it would actually reduce fire risks.
That said, the plan does put forward some approaches that could help reduce fire risks, such as integrating Tribes’ traditional ecological knowledge of cultural burning. Previous established science, based on long term vegetation studies conducted in the Siskiyou National Forest, found that a regime of both thinning and burning, could reduce fire risk while also improving biodiversity. Cultural burning has the additional benefits of supporting traditional indigenous practices related to procurement of first foods and cultural materials, such as for basket making. Also, strategic management aimed at reducing fire risk near communities could have co-benefits of creating jobs and even “biomass” that could be a product with economic value. However, in our region, thinning can also open up the forest to drying sun and brush development, which may bring greater fire risks and the need for more continuous and costly brush abatement. Moreover, as big fires in eastern Oregon (mostly all in grass and sage) and in southern California demonstrate, clearing a narrow swath of forest may or may not actually help to contain a fire that is moving at > 45 miles per hour. If saving lives and property is most important, investments in protecting homes from ember ignition may be most cost-effective. The example that drove this home for me was when the 2017 Eagle Fire jumped across the massive COLUMBIA RIVER!
This is a complex and consequential issue, KAS will be working with other Oregon Audubon/Bird Alliance chapters to develop substantive comments on the proposed NWFP amendment, and it will be helpful for everyone to send in personal comments as well to demonstrate that many people care about the future of the Pacific Northwest’s forests. I will send out talking points in the March HOOT OUT to make it easier for you to engage. Stay tuned.
Headwaters Mining Risks Grow
I am disappointed, though not surprised, to report that there was no omnibus public lands bill at the end of the last Congress so Senators Wyden and Merkley and Rep. Hoyle did not have a chance to pass the Southwestern Oregon Watershed and Salmon Protection Act to make permanent the mineral withdrawal that protects the headwaters of Hunter Creek, Pistol River, North Fork Smith and Rough and Ready Creek at the head of the Illinois River. This is troubling because with the election of President Trump, the Southwest Oregon Mineral Withdrawal could again be at risk. You will remember, the previous Trump Administration tried to undo all mineral withdrawals. Ours was saved by our members of Congress, who championed the cause—no doubt inspired by the overwhelming public support still fresh in everyone’s minds! To make the Southwestern Oregon withdrawal safe from “undoing,” it needs to be passed by Congress, and so we’ll be encouraging our delegation to reintroduce it once again.
Meanwhile, the threats to our rivers’ headwaters are increasing with the growing national interest in sourcing metals, like nickel, from within the U.S. Last summer, the Canadian mining company Homeland Nickel submitted a Plan of Operations to the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest to proceed with “confirmation sampling” at Red Flat at the headwaters of Hunter Creek/ Pistol River. Through a records request, I was able to finally obtain their proposal. In short, the company now wants to drill forty-four sonic holes to a depth of up to fifty feet each and also take 25 “bucket samples” from existing trenches to “confirm” the extent of minerals it claims to have unearthed prior to the area’s withdrawal. At this point, the Forest Service is waiting completion of an internal review (surface use determination) before deciding whether or not the sampling can reasonably proceed. Of course, in areas that are withdrawn, there can be no new claims and no mining unless claims are proven to be “valid,” but a loophole persists that may possibly allow for confirmation sampling. This could enable the mining company to make a stronger case that its claims are, indeed, “valid” (aka economically profitable) –and therefore eligible for mining, despite the mineral withdrawal and community concerns.
In addition, the same company reports that it has staked several thousands of acres of new claims in the vicinity of the cone-shaped Eight Dollar Mountain, where a lovely botanical area sits above the Illinois River, over near Cave Junction. We have concerns about surface mining in such a sensitive area. Neither the botanical area nor the wild and scenic river has any protections from mining. Last summer, KAS (together with KS Wild and Friends of the Kalmiopsis) nominated the stellar wild and scenic reach of the Illinois River—from the Forest boundary near Eight Dollar Mountain down to Lawson Creek, upstream of Oak Flat and Agness— for designation as an Outstanding Resource Water (ORW). This special designation under the Clean Water Act is intended to prevent degradation of high-quality waterways. We also supported the nomination of Rough and Ready Creek, an upstream Illinois tributary that also merits and needs extra protection. In November, KAS testified in favor of both nominations at a public meeting where DEQ identified priority projects to pursue over the next three years. We are hopeful that DEQ will include consideration of the ORW nominations for the Wild and Scenic Illinois and Rough and Ready Creek in its next three-year work plan.
Floating Offshore Wind Energy update
Last fall, shortly after the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) cancelled its Oregon lease auction, Curry County voted 80 percent and Coos County voted 60 percent against locating floating wind energy off the South Coast. This followed significant concerns raised by Tribes, fishers, conservationists, and elected officials at all levels of government. On his first day in office President Trump, who vehemently detests wind turbines, issued an Executive Order to pause offshore wind energy development, but that doesn’t mean it is going away altogether.
The State of Oregon, as directed by the legislature in 2024, is now tasked with developing a “Road Map” for wind energy development as a means to meet its greenhouse gas emission goals. In November, the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) convened a public “roundtable” to develop the plan. KAS President Ann Vileisis was appointed to participate in the eight-month long process. You may recall that KAS participated in an informal offshore wind energy roadmap group last winter, but this roundtable is the official state process. Thus far, the group of many diverse stakeholders, including Tribes, fishers, conservationists, labor unions, energy developers, and climate activists, has been meeting each month to envision and think through the steps that would be needed if wind energy were to come to Oregon’s coast. The roundtable presents an important opportunity to raise concerns that would otherwise not be considered. The meeting has been rotating up and down the coast, with opportunities for public comment and engagement. There will be only one meeting in Curry County –to be held in Brookings on March 31 –so it will be a good opportunity for the public to weigh in. I will share more details in the HOOT OUT about how to participate when they become available. (THIS DATE HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED TO A DATE IN APRIL TBA)