By Jim McCarthy
In February, WaterWatch and our allies Steamboaters and Pacific Coast Federations of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) secured formal permission to participate in a state fish passage enforcement proceeding which may ultimately determine the fate of the 135-year old Winchester Dam, a privately owned former hydropower structure near Roseburg commonly known as the biggest fish killer on the North Umpqua River.
The groups are intervening in support of native fish runs and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), and against dam owner Winchester Water Control District’s legal challenge to a recent ODFW order requiring the installation of new and improved upstream and downstream fish passage facilities at the dam in compliance with state law. We are jointly represented in this case by public interest environmental law firms Earthjustice and Crag Law Center, as well as the Law Office of Karl G. Anuta.
Construction costs for new fish passage facilities at the aged dam are expected to approach $100 million. The most recent comparable fish passage upgrade in the North Umpqua subbasin, at PacifiCorp’s Soda Springs Dam, cost upwards of $70 million. In contrast, estimates for Winchester Dam removal range between $3 and $6 million.
This contested case is the latest in the years-long, high-profile back-and-forth between a WaterWatch-led statewide coalition of fishing, conservation, and whitewater groups and the dam District over the dam’s poor management and ongoing harm to the North Umpqua. The District’s governing board previously rejected our coalition’s 2019 offer to contribute $10,000 in engineering services to improve the dam’s fish ladder function, and then a subsequent 2020 offer to remove the decaying dam at little to no direct cost to the District.
WaterWatch’s formal offer to remove the dam still stands.
Meanwhile, the longstanding federal case against the dam owners brought by WaterWatch, Steamboaters, and PCFFA over the dam’s harm to threatened Oregon Coast coho listed under the Endangered Species Act goes to trial in April. The issues in this federal case overlap substantially with the issues in the state fish passage enforcement case the same groups joined in February.
Also set for a hearing in April is the state contested case over the fines issued by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality against the Winchester Dam owners and TerraFirma Foundation Repair, Inc., the primary contractor for the 2023 repairs at the 450-foot wide, 17-foot tall, 135-year old structure. TerraFirma’s owner is also the president of the dam District’s governing board. Last year, WaterWatch and our coalition allies successfully intervened in this proceeding to ensure accountability for those responsible for the environmentally catastrophic repairs at the dam. The groups intervened in the case on behalf of the river, water quality, fish, and wildlife, and are represented by Crag Law Center.
Winchester Dam is the highest ranked privately-owned structure on ODFW’s 2019 Statewide Fish Passage Priority List, where it is noted for impeding passage for spring Chinook, fall Chinook, summer steelhead, winter steelhead, cutthroat trout, and Pacific lamprey, as well as coho. The previous highest ranked privately-owned structure on this statewide list, Pomeroy Dam on the Illinois River near Cave Junction, was removed by WaterWatch in 2024 through an agreement reached with the landowner.
The North Umpqua River is vital to Oregon’s economy and quality of life, but faces serious challenges due to dams, climate change, population growth, and other impacts. Winchester Water Control District’s fish-killing, dangerous, and obsolete dam provides no flood control, hydropower, or water supply function except to back up the river for a private waterski lake. Thanks to your support, WaterWatch is working to remove this dam and end the needless harm it causes to invaluable natural resources.
This article originally appeared in the spring 2025 issue of WaterWatch of Oregon’s Instream newsletter.
