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Out of Oak Springs Many trout and steelhead stocks in Oregon begin life at Oak Springs Fish HatcheryBy Mark Gibson The Chronicle If you have ever angled for rainbow trout in an Oregon lake, chances are good you’ve caught fish whose origins are Oak Springs Fish Hatchery near Maupin. “What we do is far more complex then most people understand,” says hatchery manager Lyle Curtis. “It impacts fishing in the entire state.” The hatchery, run by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), produces one of two primary trout stocks for the entire state. The trout are distributed as eggs, fingerlings and catchable fish. The hatchery also starts summer steelhead for the Willamette Basin runs. Ironically, none of the fish raised at the hatchery go into the Deschutes River, which the hatchery overlooks. Locally, trout are stocked in lakes like Pine Hollow Lake near Wamic, Baker Lake near Friend and Taylor Lake near The Dalles. Summer and winter steelhead are raised for release as smolts into the Hood River. Local lakes receive a variety of fish, including many of the brood stock, which are large, heavy, three-year-old fish. They are great fish, Curtis noted. Not only are they large, but they have been raised on a premium diet. Production at the hatchery changes constantly, as needs in the state change, with two or three million fish produced each year. That doesn’t include the 2.5 million eggs produced each year for other hatcheries in the state. “They are well-traveled fish; they go all over the state, except the coastal regions.” The hatchery’s glory is its water, drawn from springs draining the Juniper Flats aquifer. The water is a constant 53 degrees, summer and winter, with no pathogens. It’s a perfect temperature for growing fish quickly. The water is pooled underground behind a natural dam in what was once a channel of the Deschutes River. Fourteen springs feed seven intakes in the cliffs above the hatchery, a feature that attracted the original developers in the middle 1920s. The hatchery has been in continuous operation ever since. Except for a 30 percent drop in flow in 2005, a decrease which so far is unexplained, the flow is constant year round. If the water provides the glory, a tight-knit community of workers provides the ways and means. “Everyone is required to live on site,” Curtis explains. “There is always someone here to manage the flow.” Alarms signal any interruption in the flow of water. In the incubator hatch, where hundreds of thousands of eggs are hatched out and raised to fry, crew have only 15 minutes to fix any interruptions in the steady flow of water or the fish will be lost. The work is not just fish and fish culture, but a diverse set of skills. They maintain the facility, using woodworking, metal working, ground maintenance, mechanics and plumbing skills. The facility sprawls over several levels, with upper, middle and lower ponds, and hatchery, cold storage and office buildings. Employee residences are scattered along the fringes. The hatchery is at the bottom of the chain of command, Curtis laughs. They produce the fish requested by the biologists for their fisheries. “Our job is to meet those requests. ‘‘Little fish are like little babies, they are making a mess all the time. You have to clean it up all the time.” Raising fish has been going on for hundreds of years, Curtis noted. “We know how to rear fish.” More modern issues, like questions regarding how hatchery fish impact wild species, have been raised in only the last 25 years. “Prior to that, a fish was a fish. In the 1980s, sensitivity was raised as to what impacts hatchery fish have on wild fish. It is not real well understood; there are a lot of unknowns.” In response, hatcheries and biologists have adopted a very conservative stand, keeping native and hatchery stock completely separate. As a result, few streams are now stocked with hatchery trout. Funding for the hatchery is provided by license fees, state general fund money, mitigation money from dams and sportfish restoration funds.
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2001-2007 Eagle Newspapers Inc., AP materials © 2006-2007 Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Dalles Chronicle • PO Box 1910, The Dalles OR 97058 (541) 296-2141 • www.thedalleschronicle.com Serving Wasco and Sherman counties in Oregon, and Klickitat county in Washington USA |