By David Thomas, NFS McKenzie River Steward
Date: October 21, 2025
Deal With the Rewilding of the McKenzie River Basin:
Planned repair jobs for 2025 appear to have actually been efficient. Eviction Creek Flood Airplane Improvement was mostly finished, broadening on the work formerly done at Finn Rock Reach on the McKenzie River. Nevertheless, a number of essential personnel at the USFS either left or were fired as that firm gotten used to the concerns of the brand-new administration. As the majority of the Upper McKenzie Basin belongs to the Willamette National Park, it is now uncertain to what level there will be required federal involvement in jobs moving forward. Nevertheless, for 2026, there are strategies to broaden the flood airplane repair on the Lower South Fork towards Cougar Dam. At this moment, it appears that financing will be readily available for this work. Nevertheless, beyond 2026, the program will require to discover brand-new sources of moneying to keep the objectives and expectations of the numerous partners in this basin-wide program.
I am presently dealing with the McKenzie Watershed Council and the McKenzie River Trust to determine appealing sources of extra financing to offer continuous assistance. The working property is that there will have to do with a six-year duration of undependable federal assistance that will require to be “covered” with brand-new sources of financing. Fortunately is that, in initial contacts with structures that typically support preservation programs, they are aware of this scenario and plan to step up their involvement as required.
On a more favorable note, the McKenzie River Trust continues to broaden their holdings as landowners transfer basin residential or commercial properties to them. Naturally, this procedure establishes an evaluation of work that is required to return the land to the services that fulfill the company’s charter. This in turn promotes job preparation, consisting of budgeting. Appropriately, the financing requires for basin programs increase and putting more pressure to deal with the financing problem explained above.
The Status of Spring Chinook:
At this moment in the year, the returns of ESA noted Spring Run Chinook Salmon at Willamette Falls were really near to their 5-year average. Information for salmon getting in the McKenzie River at Leaburg Dam have actually not been launched. Nevertheless, it is anticipated that, offered the performance of the Leaburg Dam arranging operation, just a little percent of hatchery origin salmon (HOR) will attain the upper river to generate. In 2015 the reported PHOS for the upper river was less than 5%.
Nevertheless, the salmon generating premises listed below Leaburg Dam are substantial with a really high PHOS (>> 40%). For factors that are not comprehended, HOR salmon going up to Leaburg Dam appear to prevent the arranging operation and generate listed below the dam. It is noteworthy that if all generating information are aggregated for both above and listed below the Leaburg Dam, the total PHOS for Spring Chinook in the McKenzie River Basin has to do with 25%. This number is considerably above the advised all-river PHOS (<< 5%) required in the NMFS BiOp for this subbasin. In discussing this point with ODFW's local fishery biologist, Jeff Ziller, he suggested that due to the fact that the lower river (i.e., listed below Leaburg Dam) has warmer water, he did not anticipate that redds because sector to be as efficient as those above the dam. Nevertheless, he used no information to support that claim. NOAA's 2024 5-year evaluation (2024) of the status of noted salmon and steelhead in the Willamette Basin concluded that no development has actually been made in the healing of these noted types. ODFW appears to concur with this finding, however no celebration has actually dedicated to a major procedure or program that may achieve the function of the ESA listing.
Looking Forward:
The fate of the Leaburg Dam and bridge appears to be settled, because the owner, EWEB has actually dedicated to decommissioning the Leaburg Power Station, it’s diversion canal and eliminating Leaburg Dam and the associated bridge. This system was put in location throughout the nineteen twenties and has actually supplied electrical power to the Eugene-Springfield location. The present transfer to get rid of the power station was stimulated by a discovery of considerable instability in the canal utilized to divert water to the power station. This caused the choice to get rid of the whole system and the acknowledgment that FERC would need dam elimination as part of the decommissioning. Preliminary quotes of this job have actually remained in the series of 20-30 million dollars. At present water formerly diverted to the canal has actually stopped and is not anticipated to be resumed, even on a momentary basis. Nevertheless, EWEB has actually just recently alerted their members that they anticipate to require about 5 years to put together the appropriate files to send to FERC as a petition to get rid of the job which they anticipate to start the physical elimination procedure in 2032, without any quote for conclusion.
Related to these actions, the ACOE owned and run McKenzie Hatchery is dewatered so that its only usage is restricted to recuperating eggs from recorded salmon and to looking after them up until they hatch. Individually, the just other hatchery on the McKenzie River, the Leaburg Hatchery has actually experienced increasing temperature levels in its rearing ponds so that it now stops working to fulfill the Oregon temperature level requirements for launching water into rivers. Appropriately, fish are no longer raised and launched from that hatchery. To even more make complex these problems, ACOE appears to have actually taken the position that despite any dedications it might have made in previous mitigation arrangements, now that they are being pushed to straight attend to problems of fish passage at their dams, the previous monetary dedications are moot.
Fish Passage at Trail-Bridge Dam:
In the nineteen sixties EWEB established a system of tanks and dams in the Upper McKenzie River Basin which they describe as the Carmen-Smith Hydropower Task. The system supplied a number of power stations and associated tanks, the lower sector ending at Trail-Bridge Dam and tank. The position of this dam serves as a barrier to noted Spring Chinook Salmon reaching generating premises above that dam. Likewise, a major issue is the hazard to the staying isolates of threatened Bull Trout in the Western Waterfalls. By the time this types was acknowledged as extremely threatened, its variety was restricted to little (>> 200 spawning fish) isolates above either Trail-Bridge or Cougar Dam in the McKenzie Sub-basin. As neither dam supplied reliable fish passage, efforts were made to reestablish Bull Trout listed below Trail-Bridge Dam and above Hills Creek Dam on the Willamette River Middle Fork. At the time, it was presumed that fish passage enhancements at the dams would support inter-connection of these populations and therefore produce a more robust and sustainable population.
Downstream fish passage at Cougar Dam is an operate in development and a periodic Bull Trout gives to the mainstem McKenzie River. Nevertheless, their opportunities of returning as much as their natal spawning premises are extremely not likely. When it comes to the Carmen-Smith Task, when the FERC relicensing procedure was started in 2006, a number of preservation groups and ODFW pushed for the addition of fish passage to support Bull Trout and salmon spawning. After much backward and forward, the license was restored in 2016 with the particular addition that reliable fish passage would be carried out at Trail-Bridge Dam, however excusing 2 dams greater up in the system.
Ever Since, and regardless of considerable prodding from the preservation neighborhood, EWEB has actually just carried out a pipeline device, big enough to hold a single fish trying to move above the dam. By regularly inspecting this device, the fish can, in concept, be recorded and trucked above the dam and launched in the above-dam tank. EWEB has actually supplied no information on the number of fish and of what types have actually been moved by this way, however Jeff Ziller informs me that ODFW has actually helped EWEB in moving “a number of fish” above the dam. In 2024, a Bull Trout eDNA study performed by the McKenzie Flyfishers, and supported by the USFS and ODFW recorded the present failure to broaden the Western Waterfall Variety of these extremely threatened fish.
How EWEB will react to their commitment to offer reliable fish passage is uncertain. As kept in mind previously, they deal with considerable expenses with the decommissioning of their Leaburg Power Station and associated dam. In action to the current Federal Courts termination of the claim concerning Trail-Bridge Dam fish passage, EWEB has actually just revealed the ” We Won” without any description of the problems or the concern of jurisdiction. In July they revealed a brand-new power agreement for buying electrical power from the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) from 2028 when their existing agreement ends and extending it for another twenty years. The supreme expense of this agreement extension is anticipated to be from 2.5 to 3.0 billion dollars; all of which will be handed down to rate-payers. This is not a repaired rate agreement, however just defines the variety of kilowatts that are being acquired, so the expense of electrical power might increase considerably in the future. It is fascinating to keep in mind that BPA is offering a minimum of 80% of the power required by EWEB. Thus, the internal capability of EWEB to produce electrical power at the Carmen-Smith Task is restricted to backups in times of high needs or as ought to BPA power not be readily available. Presently, EWEB has actually not launched a time-line or expense quote for Trail-Bridge fish passage, however their board of directors were recommended that the expenses would likely be above 20-30 million dollars. Offered the present dedications to Leaburg and the BPA, we can anticipate that EWEB will be encouraged to postpone the job as long as possible. Whether there will still be Bull Trout in the Upper McKenzie Basin already is at finest an open concern.
Maybe independent of all these problems, on September 18 th, the EWEB CEO and General Supervisor, Frank Lawson, revealed that he is retiring next year. The energy has actually started a look for a replacement.
