Leaburg Hatchery continues to make fish news as it faces environmental issues caused by an overheated water discharge from the facility.
The water then flows directly into the McKenzie River, just below Leaburg Dam, where summer season water discharges exceed the 60-degree threshold.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) closed the hatchery in June 2024 due to a regulation imposed by the Department of Environment Quality (DEQ) and a temperature threshold.
All the fish, primarily rainbow trout, with added expense, were taken to the Willamette Hatchery in Oakridge.
With the trout season looming and no certainty of satisfying the DEQ, the ODFW has applied for a variance that could allow operations at Leaburg Hatchery to continue this summer.
At press time, the request was pending.
Speaking of Leaburg Dam, despite resistance from some of its neighboring homeowners, the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB) continues to work on demolishing the antiquated electrical power-generating system.
Engineers designed the dam in 1928 to divert water from the McKenzie River into a canal with a hydroelectric plant at its terminus. In 2018, the canal reportedly had several leaks, compromising its integrity and earthquake resistance.
EWEB determined that the cost of repairs was prohibitive, deciding the least-expensive alternative was disassembling the Leaburg Dam and canal project, including demolishing the Leaburg Dam.
I’ll remind everybody that Leaburg Dam has no flood-control capacity. It is merely a diversion site for a hydroelectric power plant. Without purpose, the plant is no longer cost-effective, and federal regulations prevent the dam from continuing to stand.
To that end, EWEB announced at its December board meeting that it had hired McMillen Incorporated. McMillen Inc. is the engineering contractor the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) utilized to decommission the dams on the Klamath River.
Although Leaburg Dam is a far smaller project, based on the efficiency of the Klamath River decommissioning and other projects, McMillan Inc. was decidedly EWEB’s first choice.
The demolition of Leaburg Dam is still six or seven years away,.
Since EWEB shut down the canal system in 2018, water has flowed down the original channel. This angler has little doubt that the fishing below Leaburg Dam has been better over the past several years than it has been for most of our lives. The summer steelhead fish were off the charts, and wild rainbow trout have also started repopulating the river below Leaburg Dam.
In recent years, EWEB has observed a self-imposed minimum of 1,200 cubic feet per second. At that rate, any warm weather would slow the fish bite to about midday on most summer days.
Water quality quandaries
Water quality issues continue to surface at the McKenzie River Hatchery, and moving its production to Willamette Hatchery should consume fewer department resources than Leaburg.
McKenzie River Hatchery sits on the river’s north bank, a couple of miles west of Leaburg Dam. It is primarily a salmon hatchery and doesn’t involve a weekly catch distribution to keep fish around the southern Willamette Valley.
I expect our local ODFW crew to meet their quantity and quality goals this season … but how long can the department absorb the expense?
Downstream to Walterville
A little further downstream is the Walterville Project. The canal system is closed, and the hydroelectric generating plant is offline. However, repairs to the Walterville Canal, also leaking, will begin sometime this spring. That portion of the McKenzie Rivers Walterville hydroelectric project will continue to operate as the utility-owned backup to EWEB’s primary energy source, the Booneville Power Administration.
One more bit of fish news, something to plan for. Again, this year, with a paid “Endorsement,” you can fish with two rods per angler for all game and non-game fish, excluding sturgeon. Kids under 12 can fish two rods for free throughout the entire Willamette basin.
Email: [email protected]
