Corps to blast notch into Elk Creek Dam

The blast marks the beginning of the end of a long-running ecological controversy

A blasting charge set for detonation Tuesday afternoon along an upper Rogue River tributary will barely be large enough to loosen and crack a 10-foot-thick chunk of concrete less than half a football field in size.

"It'll be relatively uneventful," says George Miller, a project engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "As far as blasting goes, it will be a ho-hummer."

But when that blast is at the top of half-built Elk Creek Dam, it will be a real humdinger that represents the beginning of the very end for one of Southern Oregon's most controversial concrete icons.

Demolition crews at 2 p.m. Tuesday were scheduled to touch off the first of 16 explosions at the heart of the Corps' project to notch the dam along this upper Rogue River tributary near Trail.

When completed in about six weeks, the notch will allow Elk Creek to flow unimpeded past the structure and let wild salmon swim uneventfully past the site for the first time since construction began there in 1986.

Then the structure once lauded by some for its potential water-control capabilities and chided by others as a significant barrier to wild salmon will remain mothballed as planned more than a decade ago.

"It does have some significance," said Miller, the Corps' Elk Creek project manager. "It's our first shot at removing concrete. We are moving forward."

To Shady Cove activist Roger King, Tuesday's actions represent a step backward for Rogue River Basin flood control. After spending nearly $114 million on various Elk Creek Dam projects over the decades, having nothing to show for it other than notched concrete is worthless to King.

"We wasted all that money," King said. "I think some day they'll say we should have finished that thing."

Since the Corps first started shopping the Elk Creek Dam project to engineers in the 1980s, Ashland activist Andy Kerr has preached that the Corps never should have begun that thing.

"It's tragic that this dam ever got started and built as far as it was," said Kerr, the former conservation director of the Oregon Natural Resources Council. "Eventually, rationality prevailed in public policy."

Kerr's ONRC was a co-plaintiff in environmental lawsuits that halted construction by forcing the Corps to consider the cumulative effects of the dam's placement and operation on Rogue water quality.

That suit eventually led the Corps to scrap any plans to complete the dam, culminating in the notching that the agency has called the best and least-expensive way to allow hands-off passage of wild salmon and steelhead to waters above the structure. It also complies with federal Endangered Species Act requirements for the Rogue basin's wild coho, which are listed federally as a threatened species.

"I think the coho salmon will be celebrating," Kerr said. "It's long overdue."

Kerr will be out of town and will not be watching Tuesday's demolition. But the Corps has re-opened the public viewing immediately overlooking the dam, and at least some spectators were expected there.

However, the rest of the dam site will remain off limits to the public.

"The message is, we don't want people to get close, for safety reasons," Miller said.

The Tualatin firm of McMillen-McDougall has a $7.9 million contract to notch the dam and restore the stream channel on both sides of the structure.

So far, the firm has removed the old fish trap downstream of the dam that has been used for the past 15 years to trap and haul salmon and steelhead past the dam, Miller said.

Crews also have restored the downstream channel and the creek has been diverted through a pipe around the concrete, opening the door for the actual notching, Miller said.

Workers will drill 271 holes and use 2,777 pounds of explosives in 16 planned explosions that ultimately will dislodge about 75,000 cubic yards of material for removal by Sept. 15, Miller said.

The notch will cut 83 feet off the dam, beginning with the first charge Tuesday.

"There will be five blasts of a horn to clear the area, and then a 'pop,' " Miller said. "Really, it's not a real big thing."

Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail mfreeman@mailtribune.com.