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.