Marion County Judge Daniel K. Wren
On September 2, 2026, Marion County Circuit Court Judge Daniel J. Wren ruled in favor of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), and the ODFW commissioners that the summer steelhead program at the Rock Creek Hatchery would remain closed, to allow wild migratory fish populations in the Umpqua Basin to recover.
Ironically, the three “No Term Limits” Douglas County Commissioners were the driving force behind the lawsuit which has needlessly cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
The Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua River was built way back in 1890.
In the ensuing 136 years, salmon and steelhead hatcheries have been the popular solution to overfishing declining fish populations, and migration barriers like the Winchester Dam.
But after a century of crossbreeding between hatchery-raised fish and wild migratory native fish, some people erroneously believe that genuinely wild fish no longer exist.
For example, Boomer Wright, Republican Representative of Oregon’s District 9, claims, “There are no native fish anymore—it’s all hatchery fish, one way or another. They’ve been inbred.”
Although many agree with Wright’s questionable opinion, most are unwilling to acknowledge that the condemned and uninsurable Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua River is perhaps the worst manmade obstacle to migratory native fish in Oregon.
Providing no hydroelectricity, irrigation, or flood control, Winchester Dam’s sole function is as a private waterski lake for a couple dozen privileged speedboat owners. The 17’ dam is too high for fish to jump.
It’s 80-year-old sub substandard fish ladder is 400’ away from the river’s mainstream, making it nearly impossible for fish to find. According to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), the dam blocks or impedes access to 160 miles of high-quality habitat for salmon and steelhead.
Consequently, salmon and steelhead populations on the North Umpqua have rapidly declined through the decades, increasing the dependence on hatchery raised fish. Although hatchery fish do increase fish populations, like cloned saplings at a tree farm, they are inferior, lacking the genetic diversity of wild native fish.
In September 2024, ODFW ordered the Winchester Water Control District, owners of the Winchester Dam to build a new, $70 million state-of-the-art fish ladder on the other side of the river by 2030 because the “presence of exposed rebar, in certain locations, which can cause injuries and abrasions to fish and result in a harm and fish mortality.”
Jeff Dose, as fisheries biologist with more than three decades experience in the Umpqua Basin observed, “Nearly all research has found significant ecological and genetic adverse impacts to wild populations…when hatchery fish are introduced into streams [such as] competition, predation, disease transmission, altered migration patterns, and altered predator behavior and survival.”
But wild native fish develop in natural aquatic habitat where, throughout their lifetime, they’re subjected to the forces of natural selection, whereby only the fittest survive to adulthood, to reproduce and pass their genes to the next generation.
A July 2023 study, concluded that in a global search of 206 peer-reviewed publications (1970-2021), 83% of these studies found adverse impacts to wild salmon and steelhead populations from hatcheries, while only 3% were determined to be beneficial.
Simply put, hatchery fish are genetically inferior to (and dumber than) wild fish.
A February 2024 study indicates the introduction of hatchery reared fish into wild rivers can “inadvertently select for traits that may be disadvantageous in the wild. This could have downstream implications for native stocks, if these fish breed with wild fish when they are released.”
But very few studies researched what happens when hatchery programs are terminated, allowing wild migratory fish populations to recover naturally without contamination of the gene pool by inferior hatchery raised fish.
Hatchery and wild steelhead juveniles spend years together in wild rivers, subjected to the same environmental conditions, competition, and predation.
“They out-migrate at the same ages, during the same season, enter the same ocean at the same time,” Umpqua Basin fisheries biologist Jeff Dose explained. But the only significant difference is “return timing, state of gamete [reproductive] maturation, and the cessation of the winter hatchery program some 35 years ago, while the summer hatchery program continued until very recently.”
The Rock Creek Hatchery, founded in 1920, at the confluence of Rock Creek and the North Umpqua River in Idleyld Park, was the last hatchery in the Umpqua Basin; all the others had already closed.
According to John McMillan, the science director at The Conservation Angler, 19 years after the Rock Creek Hatchery was built, wild summer steelhead populations began diminishing, and the number of new fish produced (in comparison to deaths) dropped 70% from pre-hatchery levels.
In 1993, the winter steelhead hatchery program at the Rock Creek Hatchery was terminated.
According to Jeff Dose, “A review of trends, not annual variation tells a very revealing story. Over the last 25 years, the winter population abundance trend has been increasing while the summer trend over the same period has been downward. If ocean conditions and the freshwater rearing environment were the primary factors in the decline, the trend for both summers and winters would be the same—they clearly are not.” [Italics added]
In other words, once the winter steelhead hatchery was shut down in 1993, in one decade (two generations of anadromous fish) the population of wild migratory winter steelhead began an upward trend.
BLUE = SUMMER STEELHEAD
GREEN = WINTER STEELHEAD
YELLOW = TOTAL WILD STEELHEAD
“It is highly likely that genetic impacts from hatchery releases are an important factor contributing to the declining summer trend and, the lack thereof, to the increasing winter trend,” Jeff Dose explained.
But crucially, this relatively quick return of wild migratory winter steelhead disproves the popular assertion that, after more than 130 years of fish hatcheries in the Umpqua Basin, there are no wild populations left.
In 2020, an education building was erected at the Rock Creek Hatchery, paid for by the well-funded, pro-timber and pro-hatchery Douglas Timber Operators (DTO), a consortium of “over 140 manufacturing, logging, trucking, private landowners and supportive businesses and individuals throughout southwestern Oregon.”
But the Rock Creek Hatchery burned down in the September 2020 Archie Creek Fire. This decreased the forest canopy which formerly shaded the river, increasing river water temperature. ODFW’s January 2022 estimate put the cost of rebuilding the Rock Creek Hatchery at $26 million—but later estimates said it would cost more than $50 million.
But based on the previous described evidence of wild migratory winter steelhead populations increasing after the hatchery program ended in 1993, in April 2022, the seven ODFW Commissioners decided to terminate the hatchery program for summer steelhead in the North Umpqua.
According to Jeff Dose, “I would not expect to see any dramatic increasing trend for wild summer steelhead until the early 2030’s, based on our experience with the return of an all-wild winter steelhead run.”
Ironically, the only structure at the hatchery to survive the September 2020 Archie Creek Fire was the education building paid for by the Douglas Timber Operators (DTO).
Career timber lobbyist Matt Hill is the executive director of DTO. His grandfather built the first hatchery on the North Umpqua River a century ago. Hill is the ringleader for all who oppose ODFW’s strategy to allow the wild native fish to repopulate unencumbered by the inferior genetics of hatchery fish.
Hill refers to Republican State Senator David “Bejing” Brock Smith, State Representative Virgle Osborne and Boomer Wright, and Douglas County Commissioner Tom Kress—all Republicans—as his pro-timber, pro-hatchery “legislative partners.”
Timber now constitutes less than 3% of Oregon’s economy. UFED is a public relations front for Douglas County’s rapidly shrinking timber industry. While the Douglas Timber Operators clearcut poor, over-logged counties like Douglas, timber corporations pay just 5% of what they paid in timber taxes 20 years ago.
Matt Hill founded the controversial 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation Umpqua Fishery Enhancement Derby (UFED). The fish ladder video camera at Winchester Dam is the main attraction at UFED’s website. The operative word in Umpqua Fishery Enhancement Derby is “enhancement.” While logging corporations clearcut watersheds, the UFED fish ladder video camera at Winchester Dam gaslights naïve people into believing there are still oodles of fish in the North Umpqua River.
In the past 30 years, UFED has granted $1.83 million for “fishery enhancement, restoration, and educational projects in the Umpqua Basin.”
Ironically, this restoration would not have been necessary if not for the severe and often irreversible damage caused by the excessive clear-cutting, and willful failure to observe best forestry management practices of DTO’s own members.
In April 2022, to prevent ODFW from closing the Rock Creek Hatchery, Matt Hill and DTO attorney Dominic Carollo filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Government of Douglas County, UFED, and token plaintiff Scott Worsely.
Although they initially got an injunction against the state, forcing ODFW to continue the hatchery program, they ultimately lost the lawsuit on merits.
But before the lawsuit settled, in December 2024, the seven ODFW Commissioners voted 4-3 to completely terminate the 64-year-old hatchery program on the North Umpqua River in an effort to restore wild summer steelhead populations.
This meant that the Rock Creek Hatchery, the worst-performing hatchery in the state, will not be rebuilt.
According to ODFW Fish Division Administrator Mike Harrington, “When we’re going through a budget crunch, it’s almost impossible not to touch the biggest cost.” Climate change and warming river temperatures increase the cost of operating hatcheries.
Water temperature is not the tail that wags the dog regarding hatchery investment as control of water temperature is paramount and cooling river water is very expensive.
It’s unlikely any state or federal agency will consider investing in infrastructure on the North Umqpua River until the infamous Winchester Dam is replaced or removed.
In short, with loss of the shading evergreen canopy in the 2020 Archie Creek Fire, the hope of rebuilding the Rock Creek Hatchery was dead on arrival.
In opposition to ODFW’s decision to close the Rock Creek Hatchery, in January 2025, Oregon State Senator David Brock Smith, and southern Oregon Representatives Court Boice and Virgle Osborne sponsored SB 512, directing ODFW to “operate a summer steelhead fish hatchery at the Rock Creek Hatchery; and release the hatchery fish from the Rock Creek Hatchery into the North Umpqua River.”
But SB 512 was so unpopular in the state legislature, it died in the Ways and Means Committee. Unable to garner the votes necessary to pass, in the waning moments of the 2025 legislative session, $1.4 million for SB 512 was added to the Omnibus Budget Bill to fund the rebuilding of the Rock Creek Hatchery.
But this backroom deal occurred without any discussion of fiscal impact or a vote.
And the $1.4 million is only a fraction of the estimated cost of rebuilding the Rock Creek Hatchery—a terrible waste of the taxpayers’ money to rebuild a fish hatchery where the river water is already too warm to support fish.
This constitutes willful and deliberate financial irresponsibility on the part of “Bejing” Brock Smith and Virgle Osborne.
The lawsuit to block closure of the Rock Creek Hatchery was appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court, who referred the case back the circuit court, costing taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees incurred by Douglas County and the Oregon Department of Justice.
Ultimately, Marion County Judge Daniel K. Wren denied the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgement, granting the State’s Motion for Summary Judgement.
And so, the defendants, ODFW and the ODFW Commissioners prevailed and there will be no summer steelhead hatchery program during the plaintiffs expected appeal of Judge Wren’s decision.
In the end, the allegiance of Tim Freeman, Chris Boice, and Tom Kress, the three “No Term Limits” Douglas County Commissioners, to the timber industrial complex was the driving force behind a lawsuit which has needlessly cost taxpayers millions of dollars—and achieved absolutely nothing.
