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About The Columbia press. (Astoria, Or.) 1949-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 10, 2017)
T he C olumbia P ress November 10, 2017 Public Safety Calls Continued from Page 2 Road. • Mutual aid for three-alarm structure fire, 3:07 a.m. Nov. 4, 87600 block Lewis & Clark Road, Gearhart. • Carbon monoxide alarm acti- vation, 9:44 p.m. Nov. 4, 33800 block Perkins Lane. m edICal Calls • Male with muscle spasms, 10:37 a.m. Oct. 30, Clatsop Be- havioral Respite Center. • Female with possible heart attack, 1:01 p.m. Oct. 30, 200 block Southwest Alder Avenue. • Female fall victim with hip injury, 2:04 p.m. Oct. 30, 90900 block Highway 101. • Female child with object stuck in nose, 3:10 p.m. Oct. 30, 0-100 block Northeast First Street. • Female fell outside lift assist, 8:37 p.m. Oct. 30, 2000 block Southeast Azalea Avenue. • Male fall victim with head inju- ry, 8:48 p.m. Oct. 30, 300 block Lake Drive. • Female who feels like she will pass out, 8:44 p.m. Oct. 31, 1300 block South Main Avenue. • Male with difficulty breathing, 8:11 p.m. Nov. 2, 33200 block Sunset Beach Lane. • Female with difficulty breath- ing, 8:44 p.m. Nov. 2, 0-100 block North Main Avenue. • Male soldier who passed out on run, 6:56 a.m. Nov. 3, Neacoxie Drive Camp Rilea. • Male with difficulty breathing, 3:30 p.m. Nov. 3, 100 block South Highway 101. • Male unable to urinate, 6:24 p.m. Nov. 3, 100 block North- west Fourth Street. • Female with difficulty breath- ing, 11:14 p.m. Nov. 3, 100 block Northwest Fourth Street. • Male who can’t get up, 2:54 p.m. Nov. 4, Highway 101 at AutoZone. • Male in severe pain, 8:30 a.m. Nov. 5, 33200 block Sunset Beach Lane. • Female fell and broke toe, 9:20 a.m. Nov. 5, 91000 block Wind Swept Road. 3 Spring Chinook come back in a big way on Sandy River Ten years ago, a new era of salmon and steelhead recov- ery started out with a bang when Marmot Dam was re- moved from the Sandy River. More than a ton of high- grade explosives were used to take off the face of the 47-foot-high concrete dam. At the time, it was the larg- est dam breach ever attempt- ed. Portland General Electric, owner of the dam, figured it would be more cost-effective to remove the structure than upgrade it to meet new feder- al relicensing standards. After blowing it up, the company spent three months with large backhoes and pneumatic hammers to pul- verize, drill, pull apart and haul off pieces of the dam. A winter rainstorm swept away backfill that had ac- cumulated behind the dam, making the Sandy totally free-flowing from its head- waters on Mount Hood to its confluence with the Co- lumbia River in Troutdale 56 miles away. Biologists, conservationists, anglers, and others hailed the removal as a victory for imperiled native runs of fish. The hope was that they’d benefit from better flows, improved water quality and unrestricted access to prime spawning grounds in the up- permost reaches of the river. “While not solely due to dam removal, returns of wild spring Chinook, winter steelhead, and coho have in- creased significantly as com- pared to their abundance be- fore the dam was removed,” said Todd Alsbury, a fish bi- ologist on the Sandy for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. In the decade since Marmot Dam was removed, ODFW has observed the largest re- turns for all three species in the 40 years, he said. ODFW file photo State fish biologists (left to right) Rob Dietrich, Todd Alsbury and Danette Faucera, run a sein net through the Sandy River to collect spring Chinook. They did this for two years after Marmot Dam was removed. Later, ODFW used portable weirs. For the past three years, when other runs of salmon and steelhead around the region have been down, the Sandy has seen increasingly strong returns. The number of wild spring Chinook increased from an average of 809 before dam removal to 2,086 afterward. Coho increased from 784 before dam removal to 1,959 afterward. Wild winter steel- head increased from 898 to 2,757. To really gauge how suc- cessful removal has been, though, it helps to look at how the fish were doing prior to removal of the dam, biolo- gists said. Wild spring Chinook were decimated in the 1950s and ’60s by dam operations, hab- itat loss and other human impacts. Fishery managers tried to rebuild the popula- tion with hatchery Chinook, which were intercepted in a trap at Marmot Dam and trucked to Sandy Fish Hatch- ery, where the next genera- tion of fish was spawned and reared. Fisheries management changed in 1998, when the fish were listed as threatened under the Endangered Spe- cies Act. It triggered discussions about ways to recover the fish. When Marmot Dam was removed, biologists lost a fish trap that gave them the ability to catch and separate wild fish. The fish needed to be separated so the wild ones could go on upstream to spawn while the hatchery fish were captured and taken to the hatchery to spawn. For the first two years af- ter dam removal, ODFW staff netted brood stock out of the river using large seine nets pulled by swimmers in wetsuits. Later, biologists installed weirs, or portable traps. To continue providing a recreational fishery, Alsbury and his staff developed an acclimation site to rear and release juvenile fish. “Our goal is to first protect native runs of native salmon and steelhead while at the same time providing a robust recreational fishery,” Alsbury said. “Thanks to a lot of hard work on the part of many dedicated individuals and a lot of collaboration we are starting to see some impres- sive results.” Habitat is the key, he said. The Sandy is one of the few rivers where fish habitat is being added faster than it is being degraded or lost, and salmon are showing up to spawn in habitat that previ- ously didn’t exist.