March 24, 2006
By STEVE KADEL
H&N Staff Writer
CHILOQUIN - The mayor of Chiloquin has withdrawn support for removing a dam on
the Sprague River, citing possible harm to city streets during demolition and
lost recreational opportunities for residents.
Mayor Mark Cobb expressed his opposition
in a March 14 letter to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the lead government agency
pushing to take out the dam. Doug Tedrick of the BIA has said removal will help
enhance the population of endangered suckers.
Cobb said the dam, built in 1914, has created a popular swimming hole for local
residents and its loss should be compensated.
“The Chiloquin City Council feels that to offset this impact, a swimming pool
should be provided to our community and endowed to ensure its perpetuation,”
Cobb wrote to Tedrick.
The mayor said the city council was led to believe in 2003 that a swimming pool
would be part of the government's mitigation plan.
But potential damage to city streets along with sewer and water pipes underneath
pose a bigger problem than loss of a swimming hole, Cobb said during an
interview.
Trucks weighing up to 80,000 pounds would rumble through Chiloquin as materials
are removed from the dam site, creating a hazard as they pass schools, he said.
It's possible that pipes under the streets would break due to the weight, Cobb
said.
Cobb told Tedrick that Chiloquin's city engineer agreed with the council about potential street damage.
“It is his opinion that the route which
the trucks will need to take through our residential streets will not be allowed
anything larger than a five-yard dump,” Cobb wrote. “This restriction will
be in effect due to the fact that no agreement is in place to address the impact
on our streets.”
Besides the weight factor, Cobb said Thursday, residential streets are not
designed for truck commerce.
Tedrick could not be reached for comment Thursday. A phone message seeking
comment from the BIA's regional office in Portland was not returned.
Chiloquin city officials are not alone in
questioning the wisdom of removing the dam. Melinda Cauvin, an attorney and
Modoc Point irrigator, says several issues need to be addressed before
proceeding with removal.
“We need to take it more slowly, do better studies,” she said.
Cauvin believes there are other ways to
improve fish passage, including building a new fish ladder. She noted that the
suckers' main spawning grounds have moved below the Chiloquin dam.
Cauvin added that the dam provides a barrier to the movement of
government-planted large mouthed bass from the Sprague River into the Williamson
River and eventually into Upper Klamath Lake.
“The bass have the ability to decimate
sucker populations as they are a voracious predator of the sucker fry and
fingerlings,” she said. “Allowing the bass access into Upper Klamath Lake
could prove disastrous.”
Cauvin also is concerned about increased sedimentation in the water as a result
of dam removal.