By Jon Bell
Canby Herald

Salmon have always been as much a part of the great Northwest as gray skies, old-growth forests and snowcapped mountains. The silvery-scaled native fauna have coursed through the regions' rivers for millennia, stamping it with a wild, unbridled reputation.

But these days, the storybook salmon are known not for their wild abundance, but rather for their alarming diminution. In 1999, the federal government listed nine West Coast salmon populations as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Three of those - chinook, cutthroat and steelhead - have historically flourished in the rivers and streams of Clackamas County. Here, too, their numbers have declined, but with the help of its Roads Maintenance Division - and generous grant funds - the county is doing its part to help restore salmon to northwestern waters.

Mark Mouser has been the Clackamas County Department of Transportation and Development's fish passage coordinator for three years. Essentially, he devised the county's fish passage program not only to help the dwindling salmon populations, but to comply with the ESA.

The program entails projects such as culvert remediation and replacement, pesticide control, ditch placement and environmentally sound building construction.

"Initially, I think people felt forced into having to do this kind of work," he said. "With more education and seeing how poor our salmon were doing, the outlook changed a full 180 degrees."

According to Clackamas County's web site, salmon are an indication of water quality and the health of the environment. Their decline, due to habitat blockage, reduction in stream flow, water quality and hydroelectric dams, is alarming. But the creeks and streams of the county are still considered vital spawning and rearing habitat for the region's native fish, so access to the waterways is vital.

As fish passage coordinator, Mouser's primary duty, aside from designing culverts and structures, is researching and writing grants.

In the summer of 2000, grants totaling $286,000 helped fund the opening of more than 18 miles of streams for native fish. And on Jan. 5, the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board voted to award the Clackamas County Roads Maintenance Division $280,000 to fund 13 more culvert replacement projects in 2001.

These projects could open up an additional 22 miles of native fish habitat. "Grants are critical," Mouser said. "We're averaging about 12 (culverts) a year. Without grants, we could only do three a year."

Before he was coordinator, Mouser worked on the road department's culvert installation team.

"I was knee-deep in mud and water, installing culverts," he said. "Turned out they were the wrong ones (not suitable for fish passage)."

Mouser was alluding to the culverts throughout the county - some 975 of them - that have been identified as barriers to fish passage, and as such, will need to be replaced. Clackamas County maintains about 8,000 culverts.

Barriers include culverts that have drops of more than six inches, rapid flow rates or slopes of more than .5 percent. Old culverts are replaced with three-sided arch or box culverts in which a natural streambed can be simulated.

Over three years, the county's culvert remediation team has replaced or upgraded 31 culverts, opening almost 50 miles of water for fish. Projects range in price from $3,000 to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Projects slated for this summer's in-water work window include culverts under Macksburg, Dryland, Springwater and Newkirchner roads, all of which are near the Molalla River or one of its tributaries.

The 90-day work window was determined by state and federal agencies for individual streams and species according to when the fish are least likely to be present. Fish are usually either out to sea or further down the river during these times.

However, Mouser said culvert workers have dip nets and a 40-foot-long seine net to temporarily move any fish in the area out of the construction zone.

"It's important that no fish are in the construction zone," he said. "We also have to be very careful with the (salmon) eggs, because any turbidity can suffocate them."

Mouser said the county roads division has taken other steps to aid in salmon recovery as well. Pesticides and herbicides are used sparingly, and buffer zones are left around streams and creeks. Ditches are left with natural vegetation in them to prevent erosion and turbidity, and buildings are constructed under riparian restrictions.

"The fish recovery program changed a large portion of the focus of the roads program," Mouser said. "We're much more conscious about letting anything - pesticides, sediments - into the streams."

Restoring habitat and providing passage for native salmon will naturally be a long, drawn-out process, but it is one that is essential to the overall well-being of the region. The county, though limited in funds and manpower, will be working on the culvert replacement aspect of fish recovery for years to come.

Mouser estimated that at the current rate, it would take more than 75 years to repair or replace all the culverts in Clackamas County that have been identified as barriers.

"At the rate of only twelve per year, some of the initial culverts will actually fail by the time we get the rest of the new ones in," he said. "My goal is to secure enough money to bring our average up to thirty a year.

I don't think that (a project) taking 75 years is going to help the salmon very much."

Ackerman Middle School
hosts Creagh on Feb. 8

By Sean Patterson
Canby Herald