Oregon’s fisheries are a billion-dollar industry.
But thanks to agricultural runoff, clearcutting, overfishing, questionable fisheries management practices, and obstructive barriers like the Winchester Dam, over the last six decades, wild migratory native fish counts on Oregon’s rivers have plummeted. To augment the ever-shrinking wild fish population, one third of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (ODFW) budget goes to fish hatchery programs. Consequently, each year there are fewer and fewer wild fish and more and more hatchery fish.
Today, more than 70% of the salmon and steelhead caught by anglers on all Oregon Rivers are hatchery fish.
For more than a century hatchery fish have been contaminating and diluting the wild migratory native fish gene pool with their inferior genetics. Some people insist that wild fish are now extinct in Oregon. They advocate for an exponential increase in the release of hatchery fish into Oregon Rivers to bolster the recreational fishing industry.
According to Boomer Wright, Republican Representative of Oregon’s District 9, “There are no native fish anymore – it’s all hatchery fish, one way or another. They’ve been inbred.”
Born in freshwater streams, wild steelhead are a salmonid that migrate to the ocean for several years before returning to freshwater to spawn. In October 2021, only 449 wild summer steelhead were counted at Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua. By reducing or eliminating hatchery steelhead, it is believed that the wild population will increase as a result of less competition for spawning grounds.
But the real obstacle to both wild and hatchery fish on the North Umqpua River is the 134-year-old condemned and uninsurable Winchester Dam. According to ODFW, Winchester Dam is one of the state’s highest priorities for fish passage correction. The dam blocks or impedes access to 160 miles of high-quality habitat for salmon and steelhead.
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. Until this deadbeat dam is removed, it is unlikely any state or federal agency will invest money in infrastructure on the North Umqpua River.
At their April 22, 2022, meeting, the seven Oregon Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) commissioners Commissioners heard testimony from two panels representing opposing views on hatchery summer steelhead releases on the North Umpqua, as well as the Coquille Indian Tribe, the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, Representative David Brock Smith, Representative Boomer Wright, Douglas County Commissioner Tom Kress and about a dozen members of the public who signed up to testify remotely.
Each of the seven governor-appointed ODFW Commissioners are from a different Congressional district and at least one is from east of the Cascades and one is from west of the Cascades.
ODFW maintains broodstock capture sites on various rivers. Once broodstock goals are met, they give some of local tribes fresh salmon “specifically for the use of tribal ceremonial and subsistence use” as per OAR 635-007-0545 (14) (d).
John Ogan, an attorney for the Coquille Tribe told the commissioners, “Given the low abundance, up and down the coast, of the naturally spawning population, we rely on the hatchery for ceremonial and subsistence use.”
The commissioners voted 4-3 to terminate the 64-year-old hatchery program on the North Umpqua River in an effort to restore wild summer steelhead populations. This means that the Rock Creek Hatchery which burned down in the 2020 Archie Creek Fire – the last hatchery in the Umqqua Basin – will not be rebuilt.
Matt Hill, executive director of the Douglas Timer Operators, a consortium of logging corporations, claims that the ODFW Commissioners’ decision to shut down the Umqpua Basin hatchery program was opposed by ODFW staff “who had recommended a reduction in hatchery production but not the elimination of it.”
Although Washington State puts $60 million a year into hatchery maintenance and infrastructure, ODFW is burdened with deferred maintenance from twenty years of spending too little to maintain Oregon’s fish hatcheries. According to Matt Hill, ODFW received a $17 million insurance payment after the Archie Creek Fire destroyed the Rock Creek Hatchery but they want to spend the money on locations other than Rock Creek.
ODFW Commissioners
In 2023, the State Legislature provide ODFW $1 million to develop a hatchery resiliency plan.
ODFW had several in person meetings with the public in Salem (but not in Douglas County), as well as a series of webinars, and ten small group meetings. At each of these, ODFW presented a plan with a number of options for the future of hatcheries in Oregon.
“One of the alternatives (and I was laughing”), a participant remembered, “was to stop all fishing in the State of Oregon for ten years and the fish will replenish themselves!” But each proposed plan involved the closing of the Rock Creek Hatchery, the last hatchery on the Umpqua River – there was no option that included its reconstruction.
ODFW’s Shaun Clements said the agency conducted a review of all 33 Oregon hatcheries, including the 14 state owned hatcheries. Combined, they release about 35 million hatchery-raised salmon and steelhead, and 5 million hatchery-raised trout into Oregon lakes and rivers, annually.
ODFW Fish Division Administrator Mike Harrington told the commissioners “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, as control of water temperature is paramount.
Climate change is the tail that wags the dog in ODFW’s hatchery resiliency plan. Global warming has changed ODFW’s paradigm for water quality – in 2025, it’s all about water temperature.
“When we lose a hatchery, it can take years to rebuild,” Clements explained. “We’re rearing cold-water fish, and when we have [river] temperatures that are 70 to 80 degrees [Fahrenheit] during the summer, that’s really not great for rearing salmon, steelhead and trout . . . So, all these things coming together, really put us at a tipping point. In order to continue to maintain the system, build something that’s resilient, we’re looking to be proactive, collect some information, work with you all, and figure out how we can adapt and invest in the system going forward.”
Based on ODFW’s projections, peak river temperatures at the Rock Creek Hatchery on the North Umpqua will be as high as 80-85 degrees.
Clements acknowledged that ODFW recognizes that there are differing opinions on hatcheries and hatchery fish. “We’re not expecting there to be a consensus out of this process,” he admitted.
At their June 14, 2024, meeting, the ODFW Commissioners approved ODFW’s 2025-2027 budget, which calls for the closure of the Oregon Hatchery Research Center in Alsea, Oregon, 25 miles southwest of Corvallis, which was damaged in a 35-acre landslide in 2020.
It also calls for the closure of the Rock Creek Hatchery on the North Umpqua, and the Salmon River Hatchery, in Otis, Oregon, 50 miles west of Salem.
Representatives of the Oregon Anglers Association argue that there is no direct relationship between declines in the wild steelhead population and hatchery fish. They vehemently oppose closure of the Rock Creek Hatchery. Chairs of the Coquille Indian Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians and the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians also oppose ending the hatchery program because it would “threaten our existential need to harvest and protect steelhead and other salmonids for future generations.”
Three local tribes have fisheries agreements with ODFW for the Umpqua River Basin, and five tribes have an historical and legal interest in this matter. Nevertheless, it seems noteworthy that Native Oregonians, whose connection to the wild salmon spans a millennia, are opposed to a longterm solution to plight of wild native fish.
Although hatchery fish do increase fish populations, like cloned saplings at a tree farm, they lack the genetic diversity of wild native fish. Simply put, hatchery fish are dumber than wild fish.
When hatchery fish breed with wild fish, they contaminate the gene pool. A February 2024 study indicates hatchery rearing of fish 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.”
Some argue that there is no scientific proof that hatchery fish impact wild steelhead. Additionally, there is some concern that raising hatchery fish outside the Umpqua Basin might expose them to diseases not found at Rock Creek Hatchery.
But diversity in the gene pool is essential for the survival of any species. Wild fish are shaped by natural selection, in wild, natural aquatic habitat, evolving in the same rivers and streams to which their forebears have returned for a millennia.
Hatchery fish are shaped by unnatural selection in artificial, predator-free tanks where they are fed pellets and are artificially spawned. This leaves them ill-equipped to survive or spawn in the wild. And they pass their inferior genes on to their progeny.
Hatchery fish have contaminated the gene pool of Oregon’s wild native fish for nearly 150 years.
The first fish hatchery in Oregon was built by the U.S. Fish Commission on Clackamas River southeast of Portland, in 1877. As the state’s commercial fishing industry grew, fish populations were adversely affected by the pollution from canneries.
In 1893, the Oregon legislature appointed Hollister Decosia McGuire the first State Game and Fish Protector. He introduced the first catch limits. A few years later, McGuire removed the adipose fin from 5,000 Clackamas River Hatchery salmon bred and raised in captivity before he released them in the river. Thirty-two of these salmon returned.
In 1898, a special session on the State Legislature passed laws to license salmon hatcheries, prohibit spawning tributaries to the Columbia River, and authorize fish commissioners to remove fish passage barriers and illegal dams. They authorized the commissioner to appoint deputies in every county to enforce fish laws and paid them with fines collected from those who violated regulations. And they authorized the Board of Fish Commissioners to build fish hatcheries on the state’s rivers.
In April 1898, State Game and Fish Protector Hollister McGuire was searching for a site for the very fish hatchery on the North Umpqua River when his boat capsized, and he drowned.
The first three fish hatcheries on the North Umpqua, near the city of Glide, were installed by Tillman “Tip” Hillery Hill (1864-1941). A hatchery was built near Steamboat Creek, a short tributary of the North Umpqua, equipped with fish traps to collect wild brood stock. In 1901, Hill captured 169 wild female salmon and produced 858,000 eggs.
Many consider the North Umpqua River to be the best Steelhead stream in North America – and some say, in the world. In 1920, Tip Hill built a trout hatchery on Rock Creek, a tributary of the North Umpqua. Breeding several kinds of stock, it was soon the Rock Creek Hatchery was the biggest in Southwest Oregon.
In 1969, they installed concrete fish raceways at the Rock Creek Hatchery, as well as five residences for staff. They were now raising spring and fall chinook salmon, coho salmon, and rainbow trout.
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 2020, the Douglas Timber Operators funded the construction of an education building at the Rock Creek Hatchery. It was the only structure at the hatchery to survive the September 2020 Archie Creek Fire that destroyed the hatchery disrupted operations at five other hatcheries, as well.
Matt Hill, executive director of the Douglas Timber Operators, is the great-grandson of Tillman Hill, who built the first hatchery on the North Umpqua River a century ago. Matt Hill served as an aide to Republican U.S. Senator Gordon H. Smith, worked as lobbyist for Edison International.
Matt Hill criticized ODFW’s hatchery review process, “They’re really looking at temperature and the impact on the health of fish that they’re raising at the hatcheries….[ODFW] shows it being 80° and going up to 85 [degrees at Rock Creek Hatchery]… [But] for 30 years they’ve been pumping water from the from the North Umpqua up there so that the fish have cool water. So, this this categorization of Rock Creek is totally inaccurate.”
Matt Hill is the ringleader for all who oppose ODFW’s proposed plan to allow the wild native fish to repopulate unencumbered by competition with hatchery fish. Hill referred to State Senator David Brock Smith, State Representative Virgle Osborne and Boomer Wright, and County Commissioner Tom Kress – all Republicans – as his “legislative partners.”
Hill’s employer, the Douglas Timber Operators, founded the controversial Umpqua Fishery Enhancement Derby (UFED) – a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation 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 clearcuts their 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 be necessary if not for the severe and often irreversible damage caused by the Douglas Timer Operators’ own members by excessive clearcutting, and willful failure to observe best forestry management practices.
Ironically, Hill is the chief proponent of the pervasive myth that there is an abundance of fish in the North Umpqua River, despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.
“Here at the Umpqua Fishery Enhancement Derby,” said Hill, “we’re volunteers. We’re doing this, you know, after our day job. And the folks that are fighting us on the other side – they are full-time paid lawyer-lobbyists . . . their life – their job is to shut this down. So, we’ve been outgunned. I think we’re smarter. I think we have a number on our side.”
Members of local environmental groups question the veracity of his assertions. According to their Facebook page, Hill’s employer, the Douglas Timer Operators (DTO) represent “over 140 manufacturing, logging, trucking, private landowners and supportive businesses and individuals throughout southwestern Oregon. Suffice to say, the DTO has considerable financial backing.
In September 2024, ODFW ordered the Winchester Dam owners to build a new fish ladder 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.” The presence of derelict dam and it’s fish ladder play a significant role in the diminishing fish populations on the North Umpqua River.
Nevertheless, UFED’s website and fish ladder video camera report “enhanced” fish counts at Winchester Dam, perpetuating the illusion that there is, in fact, an abundance of fish in the North Umpqua.
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.
The three Douglas County Commissioners are ostensibly puppets of the Douglas Timber Operators and rabidly oppose ODFW’s closure of the Rock Creek Hatchery.
Matt Hill asserts that the ODFW Commissioners can’t make decisions that have impacts on anglers and the fishery without some type of review.
In December 2022, Matt Hill and the Douglas Timber Operators’ attorney Dominic Carollo filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Government of Douglas County, UFED, and token plaintiff Scott Worsely, to prevent ODFW from closing the Rock Creek Hatchery.
They successfully got an injunction against the state, forcing ODFW to continue the hatchery program but ultimately lost the lawsuit on merits. “What we were doing,” Matt Hill explained, “is challenging the legality of the commission’s decision and procedure . . . So we lost that case fairly recently.”
Douglas County filed another lawsuit against ODFW claiming, “[ODFW’s] primary strategy in opposing an injunction is to circumvent all avenues of judicial review of the termination of the hatchery program, thereby depriving the public of an opportunity to question the lawfulness of the commission’s action while simultaneously failing to recognize the internal inconsistencies of their various positions. [ODFW is] attempting to operate in the self-contrived shadows and margins of the administrative procedures act, insisting that the commission publicly deprive the rights, privileges, and interests of named parties that participated in the decision-making process. They expressed that decision in writing and yet still come out the other side with immunity from judicial review.”
“We don’t have an injunction now,” Matt Hill explained, “which means that the state has formally and officially ended the summer steelhead hatchery program. They took two years of fish that they had in the ponds and disposed of them without consultation with the tribes. That means that, even if we win the lawsuit, you won’t see any hatchery fish in the river until 2027.”
On Thursday evening, December 5, 2024, opponents of ODFW’s closure of the Rock Creek Hatchery met at the Activity Center in the Winchester Bay Marina, south of Reedsport. Members of the Oregon Coast Anglers, Douglas Timer Operators executive director Matt Hill, as well as Republican Representative from District 9 Boomer Wright, Douglas County Commissioner Tom Kress, and Doug Barrett, recently elected chief of the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians, were in attendance.
But the elephant in the living room – the infamous Winchester Dam and its dangerous and crumbling fish ladder – was not mentioned once during the 90 minute meeting.
Since the concrete raceways at the Rock Creek Hatchery survived the wildfire, Matt Hill believes that $17 million is sufficient to rebuild the hatchery. “The only thing you have to build is a hatchery house and jet pumps.”
ODFW recently closed the Oregon Research Hatchery facility on the North Umqpua, so there may well be up-to-date equipment that can be relocated to whichever hatchery they elect to upgrade.
According to Hill, because the Rock Creek Hatchery “burned in a federal fire, FEMA has money available to the state, but they don’t know how much yet because the state is suing for Pacific Power for the ignition of the fire . . . So the FEMA money the state gets will be deducted by whatever money they get from the lawsuit. And there’s third party money from the Umpqua Fishery Enhancement Derby, or the County, or the tribes, and others who might want to bring resources to the table to rebuild Rock Creek . . . but they’re saying they can’t afford to rebuild it.”
ODFW’s January 2022 estimate puts the cost of rebuilding the Rock Creek Hatchery at $25.9 million.
Hill claims that, as part of the new hatchery resiliency plan, ODFW “hired a third-party engineer to estimate how much it would cost to rebuild Rock Creek. And the number they came up with, I think, was like $50 million or $60 million!”
He says that ODFW’s new estimate include “a six (or nine) million-dollar solar panel array” so the water chillers won’t be dependent on power plants. According to Hill, “that is absolutely unnecessary … you could rebuild Rock Creek for a whole lot less than $60 million dollars.”
One of the meeting attendees admitted, “We’ve been talking about hatch boxes here at our meetings for a long time now.”
Hatch boxes place fish eggs from a fish hatchery directly in a river instead of hatching the eggs and rearing the young fish in a hatchery facility. The hatch box protects the fry from being eaten by larger fish until they’re big enough to fend for themselves in a river or lake. This management scheme was abandoned by ODFW due to its ineffectiveness, as very few fish survived to adulthood, and because it complicates the management of wild and hatchery fish populations.
Matt Hill said he would launch an online petition to let ODFW and legislators know “that people in the Umpqua Basin want their hatchery fish” and don’t support ODFW’s closure of the Rock Creek Hatchery. “We need to get it out to all the licensed anglers,” said Hill. “The people in the community want to see fish in the river, whether they fish or not… We want to do this before it ever gets to the [state] legislature.”
Each year, ODFW sells around 680,000 fishing licenses. The cost of an annual angling license is $44 for residents and $110.50 for nonresidents, so it’s millions of dollars in revenue for ODFW. But when ODFW discovers (again) n midsummer that there aren’t enough fish in the river and they have to close to fishing season (again), ODFW offers no refunds.
Hill said he would buy ODFW’s mailing list of the names of the 680,000 people who purchased fishing licenses in Oregon in 2024 and contact them about signing the online petition to rebuild the Rock Creek Hatchery his great-grandfather founded.
Boomer Wright, Republican Representative of Oregon’s District 9, told meeting attendees, “The bad news is that Republicans are now in the super minority [in the Oregon legislature]. So, they [the Democrats] could pass any damn taxes they want and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it other than bitch – which I do pretty well.”
Boomer Wright, Republican Representative of Oregon’s District 9
“So, we have a legislature,” Wright continued, that’s controlled by the Democrats who are basically funded by the same people who are against us fishing, okay? You were correct that they would just as soon close down fishing in Oregon for the next 20 years – that they don’t want us fishing. It’s all about control . . . [ODFW’s] Shaun Clements is an anti-hatchery person; let’s just get that out . . . I’ve got two bills that are heading to the legislature as of tomorrow. The first one has to do with licensure. I’m sick and tired of paying for a fishing license and [then] they closed the damn river and I can’t fish! So, I have a bill going in [the legislature] that says if they close that river, we get a rebate. And it’s about damn time!
“The second bill has to do with abundance. The goal has to be of the ODFW to create abundance [of hatchery fish] in all the rivers and streams . . . no more, ‘We’re just gonna let a few fish out here and there.’ No! No – if you want funding, you have to come up with a concept of what abundance is in these rivers. And so, I’ve got two bills heading in that direction. With the Democrats there, it’s going to be difficult for me to get those bills through . . .with a super majority who basically, the environmental groups have them in their back pocket. … So, I’m hoping that . . . I have a little leverage and I can say something like this, ‘I’m willing to negotiate with you not to pursue this bill if you’ll open and renovate Rock Creek.’ Those are the sort of things you have to do, sometimes politically.”
Representative Wright has no interest in preserving the wild native fish population. He wants as many hatchery fish as possible released into Oregon rivers as soon as possible. When he uses the word “abundance,” he is referring to hatchery fish.
In February 2024, Doug Barrett was elected chief of the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians. He told the meeting attendees that his tribe’s biologist says “that there’s really no difference between wild fish and hatchery fish, anyway the genetics will change. He’s written multiple papers, if you guys need that information.”
Barrett said, “Water is Life. We’re a Salmon People. When we run out of salmon, we cease to exist. I’ve been fighting for Rock Creek . . . I’ve been making phone calls. I’m going to call all those guys up at ODF&W ask him what’s the status? What’s the deal? We have the data. Look at the data. Pay attention! Pull your head out of your ass and let’s move forward for the fisherman – for the fish! Basically, I just thought maybe our three lawyers – Coquille, Cow Creek, and us, could have a little meeting and get our lobbyists on board with this too, it would probably help with the federal government.”
Chief Barrett makes no distinction here between wild and hatchery fish. And he does not mention the impassable barrier of the Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua River.
“We [the tribes] share a bunch of fishing holes. All of us used to share Celilo Falls… We had abundance. When we caught our first salmon, all fishermen on the Siuslaw [River] stopped [fishing]. There’s a reason for that. The ceremony lasted a week or longer, depending on how long we did the ceremony. So, what did that do – it let all those fish go through. It’ll guarantee that there are gonna’ be more. We’re talking to the Salmon People – we guarantee the salmon’s gonna be there next year.
“Now, when the first salmon’s caught, there are 100 boats at the mouth of the river. Maybe give ‘em a day or two, to go up river and spawn?
“The seals are out of control. Back when I was a fisherman, we used seal bombs and trap bombs. We kept the numbers down. When I first started, there were 300 seals at each bay. Now there’s more than 3,000 seals at each bay. There’s some people that go, ‘Oh, these cute little sea lions – we gotta’ protect them.’ Bullshit! They gotta start slaughtering them around here and I’m trying to figure out a way the tribes can actually start harvesting them again and use them for dog food or crab bait . . .
Chief Barrett alluded to vigilante opposition to ODFW’s plan.
“Maybe we’ll just have to do what the Coquilles did – they told ODF&W, we’re going to save our own salmon and piss on you. We’re gonna like, have to start putting hatch boxes in all of our creeks and tell [ODFW] to go fly a kite and do it ourselves! And if worse comes to worse . . . Boomer, if it comes down to it, give it to the friggin’ tribes! To hell with you guys! You got a big ‘F’ [on your report card] for the last 50 or 60 years trying to manage our salmon. So, the hell with ODF&W – we’ll … do it ourselves!”
It is indeed alarming that the Native Oregon tribes, who have lived here for thousands of years, reject efforts to ensure that wild indigenous salmon will survive in the North Umqpua River for the generations yet unborn.
Chief Barrett makes it clear that aboriginal Oregonians had sufficient foresight to suspend fishing for a few weeks at the beginning of each salmon season, to allow enough of the fish to migrate upstream and reproduce. These ancestors understood the concept of sustainable fisheries.
Wild migratory native fish are the ancient old growth of the aquatic forest. They’ve been here for millions of years. They are irreplaceable.
It is indeed ironic that so many of those who oppose ODFW’s closure of the Rock Creek Hatchery also reject the preponderance of evidence that the Winchester Dam is contributing to the dwindling fish populations in the North Umpqua River.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
