Letter to Senator Gordon Smith on the Elk Creek Dam Salmon Passage

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September 16, 2002
Senator Gordon Smith
United State Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Re: Elk Creek Dam Salmon Passage

Dear Senator Smith,

We are writing you to urge you to support fiscal responsibility and salmon restoration in the Rouge River Basin in particular in coordination with the Elk Creek Project. A recently passed rider on the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill would force the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to continue maintaining the unfinished Elk Creek Dam in the Rogue River Basin-a fiscally wasteful and salmon-harming project.

The language inserted by the House Appropriations Committee in the $1 million Elk Creek Dam funding provision in the Energy and Water bill would prohibit the Corps from notching Elk Creek Dam to allow free passage of both water and salmon. The rider would require the funds to be wasted on the costly "trap and haul" alternative, simply to preserve the structure of an incomplete and unused dam at the expense of destroying a run of threatened salmon.

The Elk Creek watershed above the dam site is critical habitat for Upper Rogue river coho salmon and steelhead. This drainage accounts for only 10% of the area accessible to anadromous salmonids while providing approximately 44% of the suitable spawning and rearing habitat for Upper Rogue river coho salmon, and 15-20% of the spawning habitat for upper Rogue steelhead. Notching the dam is economically and environmentally preferable for salmon restoration, and is in fact the alternative endorsed by the Corps. Col. Randall J. Butler, commander and district engineer of the Portland District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, noted:

The 1988 court injunction requires the Corps of Engineers to provide fish passage above the dam. The existing trap-and-haul facility was designed to be used with a completed project to assist in establishing brood stock at the hatchery for a short period of time until the Elk Creek runs were eliminated. It is the best interim option for fish passage available, but is not adequate for long-term use because of its design intent.

In addition, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a biological opinion that the facility is likely to jeopardize the continued existence of coho salmon if it is used as a long-term fish passage measure. We plan to implement a long-term fish passage solution following the assistant secretary of the Army for civil works' review of our proposed plan. None of the actions will preclude the ability to complete the project in the future. (Medford Mail Tribune, March 10, 2002)

The biological opinion issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service confirmed that a trap-and-haul program at Elk Creek Dam kills salmon, will never help restore these fish, and is more expensive than breaching the dam. The National Marine Fisheries Service wrote the Corps an October 15, 1999 letter explicitly saying, "The existing trap-and-haul facility below Elk Creek Dam is grossly inadequate for long-term passage of coho and steelhead around the dam..." as a result, an Endangered Species Act take is occurring and "excessive fish handling" is "resulting in stress and potential injury."

The inclusion of the rider to prevent notching in order to protect possible future completion of the dam is both unwise and unnecessary. Completion of Elk Creek Dam, the distant hope that has led to the inclusion of the rider language, would be fiscally irresponsible and environmentally unsound. A 1982 GAO report titled "Corps of Engineers Should Reevaluate The Elk Creek Project's Benefits and Costs" showed a return of about 10 cents for every dollar spent on the dam, finding the Corps' economic feasibility analysis inadequate because, among other concerns, it was "based on methods involving questionable assumptions and not supported by complete analysis." Most recently, in this year's Corps testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water, the Corps submitted a Justification Sheet showing that the remaining benefit-cost ratio, ignoring past construction costs, is only 0.61 to 1. If the entire project cost is included, that benefit-cost ratio drops to a meager 0.36 to 1.

The Corps' cost analysis clearly shows "notching" the dam to be the cheapest alternative for restoring coho salmon in Elk Creek, while at the same time preserving the remaining partially completed dam structure. The limitation language in the bill would prevent the Corps from taking this approach, both costing the taxpayers more money and directly overriding the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

However, even if one wishes to leave open the possibility of future completion of the dam, the notching process will not preclude completion of the dam in the future. The Corps designed the notching plan to leave the essential components of the dam in place so that future completion remains an option. In fact, the Corps found that it would be more cost-effective to notch the dam immediately to provide fish passage and then, if needed, rebuild the structure in ten years, than to construct, maintain and operate a less effective trap and haul facility for the same period (ACOE Design Memorandum for the Elk Creek Lake project dated June 2000, restated in February 2002 Cost Justification).

The press across the state has argued against the Elk Creek Dam project. The Oregonian in a November 12, 1992 editorial laid out the points clearly: "Completing [the dam] makes no sense on virtually all counts. It is environmentally flawed. The corps itself agrees that the dam isn't needed for irrigation or flood control-now or in the future. And the project is economically unsound... Taxpayers already have wasted $100 million so far in pursuing, against all common sense, a myth about Elk Creek Dam's usefulness. The corps should remove all traces of the fish-killing dam's existence." The Eugene Register Guard on February 21, 1994 editorialized: "The other two dams, Lost Creek and Applegate, have long since been completed and fill whatever need exists without the third. The corps itself several years ago estimated Elk Creek's cost-benefit ration at 5-to-1-that is $5 of cost for every $1 of conceivable economic benefit." Then in November 8, 1995, the Guard chimed in again, saying: "The US Army Corps of Engineers has thrown in the towel on Elk Creek Dam. Good." Even past allies of the dam are calling for its removal. The Medford Mail Tribune-which had once defended the dam-wrote a February 14, 1994 editorial stating: "Put an end to massive Elk Creek boondoggle."

We ask for your support in removing the Elk Creek rider from the final Energy and Water bill. Your public opposition and communication with the Appropriations Committee to ensure that this environmentally harmful and fiscally irresponsible language stays off the Senate bill and is rejected in conference would demonstrate that salmon restoration and fiscal prudence can go hand-in-hand.

Please oppose this and all other anti-taxpayer, anti-environmental riders. Thank you for your consideration of this very important issue.

Sincerely,

cc: Senator Ron Wyden
Governor John Kitzhaber
Rep. Peter DeFazio
Rep. Earl Blumenauer
Rep. Darlene Hooley
Rep. David Wu