Downstate Gazette; 4; Elk Creek Special

The downstate Gazette is made possible by the k s y s production fund whose members include macaque Cablevision. Hello I'm Jeff Gold and welcome to the fourth edition of a special edition of the downstate Gazette. It's special because we're devoting all of it to a single story the Battle of El quakes been going on for a long time. Some believe it may be entering its final stages. We believe it deserves careful consideration. Do you remember about when you first heard talk about putting a dam in here.

Oh so you're four years old. Way back way back a way and three or four years old for Jeanne Ashe was about 60 years ago. His grandparents settled Elk Creek 80 years ago. She may soon be the owner of lakefront property. If people I knew didn't want to create a dammed up in the lake formed in it because we were farmers and ranchers and it would just take land from us. I've never been up here before and I seen some a lot different than I would have 15 years ago correct. Fifteen years ago the road was narrower than it was farms and ranches down through here all of the Green Party and fruit Lumen and people are just enjoying life and and it just got in turned into a dasher because I call it today. Yeah what kind of feeling do you have when you drive that road these days is there any sadness. I close my eyes.

Let it die by a chow. No I'd I feel sad for the people. Neighbors friends relatives or mine and things like that. It was a disaster in other words it just like as if a big river come out more and everybody out and it was gone. People who grew up with boyfriends girlfriends and so forth it was destruction as a whole and they were reimbursed for that right. I'm sorry that they had to move out but I have been there too because a lot of ambassador is president of the rogue basin flood control and Water Resources Association the group leading the drive to finish the project that's displaced Jean Nash's neighbors. The one hundred twenty million dollar Elk Creek Dam designed primarily to control Rogue River flooding. I have strong personal feelings about this project that saying it's sort of the place and I said it then here since 53 and I and I think up to five I had just come home from the hospital with our fourth child and I had four kids on the straight and it was two

days before Christmas and this major flood on the road left us with water in the basement no heat no lights. And we had to move to another place to. Make a Christmas out of nothing. Baskar lived farther away from the river during the 1064 flood but had friends whose homes were destroyed then and I think 74 I had the rather dubious pleasure of serving as County Commissioner and I was chairman of the board for two weeks. I got to play this entire county a disaster area because we had stolen out of one pastor says the need to tame the rogues excesses. Years of flooding and years of drought gave birth to the rogue basin Association in 1056 their efforts paid off when Congress passed the Flood Control Act of 1062 authorizing construction of the Lost Creek Dam on the upper rogue. The Applegate dam on the Applegate River which flows into the road downstream of Grants Pass and the Oak Creek Dam on a tributary that joins the rogue's three miles below the Lost Creek

Dam the Lost Creek Dam biggest of the three was under construction for most of the 70s finally closing its gates to form Lost Creek Lake in one thousand seventy seven. The second project was finished in 1980 when the Applegate dam closed its gates. Only the Oak Creek Dam remains and built. There are right posts marks the center line of a dam that would rise from this spot about two hundred twenty feet into the air. Turning Elk Creek into Elk Creek Lake which would flood this valley for some seven miles upstream and store tens of thousands of acre feet of Roger. If you've only seen Elk Creek while passing overhead on the way to Lost Creek Lake or Crater Lake you might not think it represents vast quantities of water. Its confluence with the rose about 25 miles north of Medford and it's generally so quiet it can go unnoticed but consider its other end its headwaters Elk Creek down the light green bed in the distance catches water from one hundred thirty five square mile drainage. From this

vantage point the full pool of Elk Creek Lake would come within 10 to 15 feet of the road under construction on the far hillside. But the plan to flood this valley ran into sharp resistance based on a particular characteristic I'll create in a matter time huge muddy Riley what she gnashed calls Riley geologist called Target they feared Oak Creek canyons high clay content would release particles that don't settle in water producing a turbaned lake and target releases that could hide the flies and bait of Rogue River fishermen. The concern led the state's water resources review board to withdraw support from the project in one thousand seventy five. More important was the stand taken by Jim Weaver whose congressional district included oil creates a lie to withdraw the supply support of the dam and will asked the Congress not to appropriate funds for outbreak began in the coming fiscal year.

A project's in trouble when its home district congressman turns down its funding. Despite the 10 million dollars already spent on land acquisition roads and material stockpiling the Oak Creek Dam looked dead. It's resurrection began in 1979 with the release of a new Army Corps of Engineers study just counting the turbidity threat of Bell Creek Lake fly fisherman like Attorney Bob Hunter who belongs to the anti dam Rogue River defense alliance doesn't think much of the Course study flow data from 1976 7 000 year that was a real low flow year. About 20 percent of the 20 year average. And because it was a low flow year it doesn't give any information piping to Beni impact are going to hear because of the above average or high flow for the storms that bring all that mud into the reservoir. That's not true. We use several years of record not only the year 77 Boris George office the Army Corps coordinator at the road Basin project it is what they call the West Texas model which is a computer model and we use

the information the flow of weather information going back to. Forty four years of record is a very complex subject it's not just easily discussed on the air so to speak and we won't discuss it much further beyond noting the comment of a 1981 memo from the Environmental Protection Agency. We are extremely concerned said the EPA that the West Texas model has not been adequately documented nor appropriately tested. We therefore question the use of the West Texas model as a basis for justifying this project. Dam critics also point to developments since the study like the severe logging in the drainage in the past three years that may hasten the muddy erosion into an Elk Creek Lake. But Marty Bauer vice president of the pro dam basin Association says those predictions are just more excuses from an opposition running out of arguments. I think the terrain in question is a red herring. I think it's an issue. Oppose the project whatever personal reasons they have have tried to cling to and

have tried to make an issue. Power says the state's 1981 decision to reverse itself and support the dam for a second time should put good faith concerns to rest. The right to change his position because they felt that there was no scientific data to substantiate the concern that there would be additional research and some say the reason for the state's turnaround and new support for the dam was more a matter of politics than research. Governor a TIA like the project more the next governor straw and more importantly a congressional redistricting moved Elk Creek from Jim Weaver's district to that of Project Safe order. Smith Elk Creek was back online a 10 million dollar appropriation last year almost equaled the total outlay from the twenty two prior years. The project's renewed vigor is largely a tribute to the power of the man who was governor during the 1064 floods. Mark Hatfield now chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee will have many generations

ahead of us who will be very grateful that we took this action against some of these prices that raise opposition to anything that looks down the road to the future and has a new vision to look at it and say it's so bad it's so bad and it threatens such an important resource Why does anyone want to build it. We have a disagreement here. The Rogue River defense alliance says the project's bad because of gross cost inefficiency and the resource they say it threatens the fishery. Let's consider the two areas separately. The fishery first. We've already heard fears that increased her Betty could hamper the fishing. But there's also concern about the higher flows the last Creek Lake produces and that Elk Creek Lake would produce. The lakes have to stay high for some recreation then must be drawn down to store the winner's potential floodwaters. That means heavy releases in between during the fall and scant releases in early spring. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has been studying the fishery impacts of the existing dams and this spring an internal memo set off a bomb shell fish and wildlife biologist

Mick Jennings and another researcher put to paper their reservations about the effects of an Elk Creek dance I'm discouraged about the Rogue river fishery. I think. I see. Really no benefits. From Hell Creek. Rather than a reservoir fish. Based on their study of Lost Creek Sfax the DFW researchers laid out two main concerns about a new dam that the higher fall flows would cause Chinook salmon to spawn higher in the gravel beds leaving the XTi waters during the lower spring floods and that the tempering effect of the dam would warm downstream temperatures in the winter causing salmon eggs to hatch too early. They estimated that a one degree centigrade increase could kill 60 to 80 percent of the salmon fry I don't think there's any foundation of that I think it's another delaying tactic that's been used over the years. There's some real serious question about just the scientific technique whether or not it was done properly.

In fact says the rogue basins Marty power early fish account show that the 1985 Chinook salmon run may be one of the best on record I think that makes two points. One that's right has not been destroyed by Craig. And secondly it throws a real time just how capable the Fish and Wildlife Department is in predicting these returns. But critics say that fish Council alone are a poor measure of the health of the natural Chinook salmon right now we have about this here 60 percent of the fish moving over goal rate is composed of hatchery fish. Good. Question indicates that the rial production is at a low point. There are a number of complaints about hatchery fish that they're anemic or tasteless but they cost public money to produce that they can't be caught because they're racing all the way up river to return to the hatchery. The complaints puzzle Oak Creek Dam supporters who say the road Basin project should be praised for its

landmark efforts to compensate for fish losses. This project was the first in history that had a fish net it was mitigation factor built in before any construction of any dams started. The curve of a switch hatchery was in place before any construction on the dam started. That's well and good says the road defense alliance but if we care at all about survival of wild Chinook salmon in the Rogue River we better study the Fish and Wildlife Department's observations very carefully. As an Internet field pointed out to a constituent some time back. I read one of his letters. We've studied creed to death and I was trying to get on with it. Well yes studies have been done but now we have done two experiments. We're not talking total theory. Two of the dams are in before we finish the end with third experiment. Let's go back and look at the data on the first two experiments and the career of the Oregon National Resources Council is another member of the Rogue River defense alliance. He thinks the very

length of Senator Hatfields involvement with the project is a problem that has been studied to death. Have you as well. You just have to go through. I've heard enough I sat through hours of hearings on this I have made up my mind and were saying when I read about the new data I would have to always reconsider with new evidence much like I would reconsider anybody it would bring the evidence of the world is flat. This. It's. Some fishermen don't care who's right about fish numbers they say they're not catching whatever's there. The higher flows keep them from waiting their favorite daddies or flesh drift boats out of their favorite riffles. My reaction was that the people who are protesting the construction of the dam started to protest on the basis of damage to fish. Their arguments about the fish are being refuted it nearly every day's catch on the river and I don't know where any bastard got all her information. I'm on the river and I know what the facings like Mel nor acts one of the ropes best

known guides and another member of the Rogue River defense alliance. You listen to the the fishing fishing report from the Gold Beach area of the morning. Two or three face being caught each day you know they're not catching a fish and the egg necessary to speak. They're not catching any fish and glacé like they used to. Yeah and we ask you and at the motel there. People are like almost quit coming there to go fishing. They come there and and then go through the motions but there sure as heck not getting very many Nordics says he's a far cry from a no growth environmentalist. He likes how the first two dance of cool summer waters and think summer salmon runs are better for it I supported her last quick and Applegate damning fact supported all three dams in the beginning you know in an hour. You know a tremendous amount of water that we're having in the late summer in the fall. I don't see that I can.

I'm just totally of course right of the guys want less water in the river during the time they fish so the fish can spread out. They much prefer to have the running narrower slots where they're easier to. To entice them to have them spread all over a larger river where the people were coming here from out of state to spend their money want the same thing. Maybe they do. It's those visitors from out of state sale creates photos that have to be factored into the economic equation. The roguery produces in a neighborhood of 30 to 40 million dollars during the day. It's a during a year you know I think course this is not just from the guiding industry but from motels hotels restaurants gas stations. People come from all over the world to protest wherever and they spend a lot of money money. The second prong of this debate. What is the project's benefit cost ratio the number of dollars we get back for every dollar we spend. Opponents point to a 1982 study by Congress's nonpartisan General Accounting Office the question Seventy six percent of the benefit dollars claimed by the Army Corps of Engineers. They

question most of the supposed its legend troll benefits probably because the last 20 years have seen much less development alongside the river than expected in recent times Jackson and Josephine County have banned a building within the hundred year flood plain. I think you'd feel differently about it if given this kind of benefit right in your own home if you had one might make you feel better in your house or your business or your own. Responsibility area of responsibility I think we have assigned a different point of view. One point eight feet of water ambassador mentions refers to how much l Creek Dam would be expected to lower a 100 year flood. Well what happens to a dam supporters if a flood breached the sixth Street Bridge in Grants Pass and spreads through the relatively flat downtown area. Can you indicate on the sixth Street Bridge roughly where the water levels were in 55 and 64. Here the water was just below just about at the level of the. Yeah that cross beams. In that.

Section and so the water in the sixth floor reach the bottom of those horizontal remembers that were 55 and 64 as I recall. But never to road level itself. City officials could find no record of the rogue ever reaching the elevation of the Grants Pass core area and dam opponents say it surely never will now with Lost Creek in place to hold down floodwaters an extra six to seven feet. A Lost Creek does offer protection for you in Grants Pass as well. Great office. It offers protection. Yes but there is additional protection. That does things like keep one of our city installations out of the floodplain that keeps property values at at current levels because that all of this planning is done on the basis of a 3 by project approved in 1962. You don't stop everything because somebody says you know we are going to give this dam right away. The city of Grants Pass just built a sewage treatment plant that is lower than the downtown elevation. But according to the city engineer the 100 year flood plain minus lost creeks estimated 6 feet of protection is below the level of the buildings

after a flood control the Army Corps of Engineers listed municipal and industrial water supply as well creeks number to benefit that use is critical to Senator Hatfield this nation is going to face before we realize a water crisis is more serious than the energy crises arise. Water is fundamental There is no life that can exist without water. But the geo discounted all of the creeks municipal and industrial benefits saying water needs predicted by the communities involved are not supported. Predicting future needs is fancy guesswork. Both sides of the argument are armed with charts and statistics. But here's what the two main cities themselves told us. The Medford Water Commission says it serves about 70000 people with the water rights it has today without Elk Creek. It could serve two hundred thirty thousand people. If you use the consumption rate of the day in 1900 for that use the most water if you use average 1084 consumption. Medford could serve four hundred forty thousand people. Grants Pass tells us 18000 people use its

water with its current water rights not counting what he could get from the existing Lost Creek Lake. It could serve from 75 to one hundred twenty thousand people but the basin Association says the only certainty is that we should seize the chance to provide for every future possibility. But I think we need to look at what are the alternatives. If we have a shift in the technology of agriculture if we have an industrial base in the community we have the need to do so and can satisfy that need through some industrial application that requires a good deal of water. We're going to go for it. We're not going to go subsurface we know it's not we're not going to go into the creek appropriated right now we've got it pretty much to the sources which we've identified. 29 major Corps projects that Congress considered in fiscal year 84 and 85 86. Creek has no cost sharing

such a good idea right. Jackson County or Josephine County or the red basin Association put down a token amount of money 5 percent 10 percent. We've never been asked to provide for the project. We asked if the basic association would raise local money if the project needed it. We cross the bridge when we came to it. It's OK for Uncle Sugar to subsidize his projects and give it away and fuel inflation if you will the deficit. And if they were doing their own any prudent business person wouldn't build the critics like Andy Kurz say even if you concede all the benefits of the geo subtracted you still end up with a boondoggle to follow the argument we need to consider two economic concepts. Discount rate and systems vs. incremental analysis. The discount rate like an interest rate sets a value on money. If instead of investing another hundred million dollars in the Elk Creek Dam we invested elsewhere say in a savings account or a savings bond. What rate of return could we get now like the interest on a home mortgage. A

fractional difference in the discount rate makes a big difference in total dollars spent. What discount rate should we consider for this project. The dam's critics say we're considering this expenditure today so we have to use today's standard rate about 8 and 8 percent. Project supporters say the fair figure to use is the original one from the 1962 project authorization three and a quarter percent. That was the discount rates that was authorized by the Congress. Cost changes to laze by people like Mr Weaver have increased the costs and I'm not going to apologize over these costs when I didn't do it today. Money costs more than three and a quarter percent. It just does. And you can't change that. So if conservation is reflection I reject that generally but if we were it's still a cost. That's fine if that's the only rational way they want to look at it as far as like U.S. congressional action in 1962 it's not complete. We're still waiting for it 1985. It's what.

Something like that even though nobody can find money to buy a three and a quarter percent I think that's what should be used to analytically right the problem is if you fund something at three and a quarter percent by making a discount rate very low you'll tend to way overstate the benefits and way understate the cost. So then Oregon State's Mike Hanes says he has little knowledge and no opinion about the Oak Creek Dam specifically but the financing of public works projects in general is one of his specialties. I'd be more favor the more moderate approach of the 6 7 8 percent discount rate because I think that's the measure of what we're talking about the future to be not the 3 percent that was done many many years ago and I think if we're going to properly measure these things we have to measure him in a modern multi. Last year the chief of the Army Corps of Engineers released a memo on the benefit cost ratio the Elk Creek project he wrote does not yield an excess of net benefits at the current discount rate and therefore is not economically justified as the last element in a larger system of reservoirs at the modern eight and an 8 percent rate says the Corps. The dam would return from forty eight cents to fifty six cents on the

dollar. Pending on whether the systems are incremental approach where used systems versus incremental analysis gets technical. Very simply put the incremental approach looks at create by itself. What benefits will we get if we build it at this point vs. the cost and still lie ahead. The systems approach looks at the total benefits and costs of all three dams together then divides them according to the storage capacity of each. No one argues that all Creek is cost efficient if analyzed by itself but a systems analysis looks more favorable. Because Elk Creek can in a sense borrow excess benefits from the existing Applegate and loss Creek dams figuring it that way makes no sense to the defense alliance. Any rational business person and I thinking of adding another wing on to the factory looks at incremental cost vs. incremental benefit. They don't look at their Her profit and say and we could subsidize another factory. I don't think that's. An appropriate analogy at all. Plane.

Design is for three. To work. As a system. And. To take any one of them out and say this is it this is going to stand by itself is simply unrealistic. If we stop now we get a two legged stool. I'm interested in the ways in which the two existing dams are giving their full benefits because of the absence of an Elk Creek Trail. Probably one of the most significant is the fact that. You're looking at a flood control system that's based on Wired. You have. Weather patterns that create a flooding problems that come in different parts of the of the region. I think a lot of the trade offs when you look at the systems basis are quite. Probably the most glaring example is the tree which was sized to mitigate the rise of spawning beds in all three of the upstream areas the three areas above creek. It's not being utilized to force maximum capacity today for that reason.

Benefits the hatcheries benefits somehow increase when Elk Creek is built. You will be put in a corner utilization it isn't today. Why camp today. Could be if somebody wanted to provide the funding. The hatchery is already in existence and operating and whether or not you build Elk Creek doesn't change that. If you want to say when we get back today what will happen spend it exactly and to me that's the only logical way you can realistically make any kind of logical analysis of whether we should spend our money on a project or not and support for that approach has come from an unexpected source. The National supervisor of the Army Corps of Engineers wrote to Senator Hatfield that it is prudent to compare projects based on the current discount rate as well as to require that those separable project elements such as Elk Creek stand on their own merits. The letter's conclusion said since Elk Creek is not economically feasible the Reagan administration doesn't support it.

The fact remains the core continues work at Bell Creek extending the bypass roads and finishing all the preparations. This past week Senator Hatfield new 15 million dollar appropriation through the Senate. Money that would buy the first concrete for the foundation of the dam itself. And would bring total outlays to around 40 million dollars about one third of the estimated total price tag. It's appropriations like that not abstract policy statements and letters from the Army Corps national office that direct local corps activity. It's one of the defense alliance people said if if they got to spend that money here I wish they'd build a pyramid instead because that would be it would be useless and harmless instead of a dam that's useless and harmful. Well if you want to get Congress to build it for you and the politics is a major point of this is something that we're going to great difficulty for ever even if we're terribly prosperous. We're

going to continue to need federal help. That means work through the federal Congress. That means a necessity for the political clout to get the job done. That is 29 years to get that cloud. I don't think we can stand by and wait until we turn the tap and nothing comes out of it and say. Let's go. There's more to be said about this dispute. There's just no more time to say it in. If you'd like to pursue this on your own you may want to use one of the following phone numbers. The rogue basin Association the group favoring the dam can be reached at 7 7 3 1 6 3 5 4 4 7 6 7 4 1 5. You can reach the Rogue River defense alliance. The group opposing the dam at 4 8 2 4 3 5 6 4 4 7 6 6 4 9 3. Before saying good night we'd like to take note of a centennial celebration this month. Not Medford though the Old City has our best wishes but

stand clear. You might remember it is the grand marshal of the pair of watch and greatest fear. Was born in Phoenix Oregon on June 29 1885 100 years ago Saturday. Happy Birthday very. Thanks for joining us tonight and look for us again on the last wednesday of July when that is that will return to its normal format including unraveling the knot our ongoing series on mental health. Until then for the downstate visit. I'm Jeff golden. Good night. The downstate Gazette is made possible by the k s y s production fund

whose members include macaw Cablevision.