Invasive, warmwater smallmouth bass
One of the most pervasive myths about the Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua River is that the dam keeps smallmouth bass from passing through the dam’s fish ladder. This is mostly because Ryan Beckley, president of TerraFirma Foundation Systems and the president of the Winchester Water Control District (WWCD) repeats this misinformation as often as possible, as do his minions, State Senator David Brock Smith and Rep. Virgle Osborne.
For example, Beckley told KPIC channel 4 in Roseburg, Oregon, on December 3, 2020, “It appears as though the Winchester Dam and its fish ladder, in its current configuration, is keeping out only smallmouth bass”
These are the desperate words of a man who knows the clock is running out.
Beckley is fully cognizant the Winchester Dam DOES NOT prevent smallmouth bass from swimming upstream through the dam’s 80-year-old fish ladder, acknowledged as the worst manmade obstacle to fish on any river in Oregon.
In fact, on February 20, 2025, a local fisherman named Shawn Drollinger posted on Facebook about his experiences fishing at Whistler’s Bend, five miles (as the crow flies) upriver of the Winchester Dam: “[I] can catch 50+ smallmouth [bass] a day at Whistler’s Bend in the summer, that dam doesn’t do anything beneficial at all.”
On September 12, 2023, Meghan Dugan, the Public Affairs Officer at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), stated that ODFW staff have, in fact, counted smallmouth passing through the Winchester Dam fish ladder. Dugan confirmed that the Winchester Dam does not prevent smallmouth bass from traveling upriver.
This is not surprising since smallmouth bass are non-native, warm water fish. The river stored in the private waterski lake behind the Winchester Dam is warmer than the wild river upstream, and it attracts invasive warmwater species like the smallmouth bass.
What is surprising is that, although ODFW now admits smallmouth bass do, in fact, pass through the fish ladder at the Winchester Dam, for decades they refused to publish this fact.
Likewise, ODFW wouldn’t publish the smallmouth bass count at Winchester Dam, even though they would publish the counts of suckers, pike minnows, and lamprey.
For decades ODFW director Curt Melcher made a concerted effort to perpetuate the mythology that “Winchester Dam Keeps Out Smallmouth Bass” to benefit his cronies in the WWCD, the owners of the dam.
To this end, Melcher made certain that ODFW never published scientific data proving that the invasive smallmouth bass passed through the dam’s fish ladder to the salmon habitat upstream of the dam.
Melcher went out of his way to make sure ODFW didn’t contradict Beckley’s favorite falsehood about the bass.
Melcher did this so his buddies in the WWCD could keep their private water ski lake behind the dam, at the exclusion of the public by claiming the Winchester Dam and its worst-in-the-state fish ladder kept the smallmouth bass from entering the salmon habitat upstream.
Melcher’s willingness to perpetuate false information to benefit his Winchester Dam-owning cronies culminated in the biggest fish kill on an Oregon river in 2023, in which (according to ODFW) Ryan Beckley killed more than half a million Pacific lamprey, a wild migratory native fish.
This is called “collusion.” Merriam Webster defines collusion as a “secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose.”
Melcher lost his job over the botched summer of 2023 “repairs” of Winchester Dam.
And Ryan Beckley and the WWCD, as well as Beckley’s company TerraFirma Foundation Systems, are now being sued by ODFW and the Oregon Department of Justice for an unprecedented $27.5 million because of that massive fish kill.
Ryan Beckley repeats the myth about the smallmouth bass over and over again. He even sent his two lackeys, Senator Brock Smith and Rep. Osborne, into a September 24, 2024, Senate Interim Committee On Natural Resources and Wildfire hearing to read Beckley’s false statements into the legislative record:
“Many of us believe that the,” Brock Smith read from his script, “the dam itself keeps the – – keeps the native invasives like smallmouth bass from being able to reach above the dam and therefore, assist in those world, famous fish runs.”
State Senator Floyd Prozanski, a Democrat who spent 18 years as District Four’s Member of Congress in the Oregon House of Representatives, has been outspoken his criticisms of the damage caused by the botched August 2023 repairs of the Winchester Dam that left the dam leaking worse than it did before.
Prozanski ultimately lost his patience during Smith’s obviously scripted and partisan rant, and rebuked him, “You’re working off a script there for somebody!” (The somebody to whom Prozanski referred in Ryan Beckley.)
Wild, cold, undammed river water is a natural deterrent to warm water invasive plant and fish species. The cold river water effectively kept invasive fish from swimming up the North Umpqua River for hundreds of thousands of years before the construction of the Winchester Dam. And it will do so again when the Winchester Dam is removed.
It is well known that the Winchester Water Control District (WWCD) and the Winchester Dam itself exist solely to maintain a private water ski lake on a the wild and scenic North Umpqua River – at the exclusion of the public.
Winchester Dam literally has no other purpose.
The deadbeat and derelict dam, which was condemned by the Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) in 1976, provides no hydroelectricity, irrigation, or flood control. OWRD rates the dam a “high hazard,” meaning “the department expects loss of human life when the dam fails.”
Since the WWCD board of directors doesn’t have a good reason to oppose the removal of the condemned, “high hazard,” potentially lethal Winchester Dam, they are left with no alternative but to spout falsehoods – like telling people that the Winchester Dam keeps out the smallmouth bass.
This is about money and privilege.
Some of the WWCD members are reluctant to come right out and admit that they’re willing to lie to hold on to their private waterski lake. Three out of four WWCD homeowners don’t even own a speedboat, so they can’t even enjoy the most expensive and dangerous private waterski lake in Oregon.
The two dozen boat-owning homeowners in the WWCD believe their recreational indulgences are more important than public safety, water quality, the native fisheries, or the local economy. They believe that they are entitled to preferential treatment from state agencies like the Oregon Department Fish and Wildlife and the Oregon Water Resources Department.
So, when they tell you that the Winchester Dam keeps smallmouth bass from swimming up the North Umpqua River – the number one steelhead stream in North America – don’t buy it.
They are grasping at straws.
Replacing the fish ladder will cost at least $25 million.
