By John DeVoe | Executive Director
WaterWatch has been working with the Gold Hill Irrigation District (GHID) to improve fish passage at its irrigation diversion on the Rogue River. With the removal of Savage Rapids Dam, City of Gold Hill Dam, and Gold Ray Dam and the notching of Elk Creek Dam, GHID’s diversion dam is now the highest ranking fish passage priority on the Rogue Basin Fish Access Technical Team's priority list. This project will benefit spring and fall chinook salmon, summer and winter steelhead, ESA listed coho salmon, cutthroat trout, and lamprey. The GHID diversion is on the mainstem of the Rogue River between the previous Gold Hill and Gold Ray dam sites, and will compliment and enhance the benefits of the other restoration efforts on the Rogue River.
This project was developed with a technical assistance grant from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board (OWEB), which allowed alternatives to be developed to solve the fish passage issues at the GHID’s diversion. With input from and consultation with the irrigation district and multiple state and federal agencies, alternatives were developed and an alternative selected. Based on the engineers estimate, $283,000 in funding and in-kind match were secured for final engineering, environmental review and permitting, preparation of contract documents, administration, and project management. Permits have been secured and the project is slated to begin in late August this year.
Unfortunately, the low bid out of 6 bids came in $88,000 over the funds secured for construction ($151,000). We are now negotiating with bidders and discussing doing the project in stages so that some of the work can begin as scheduled, while additional funds are secured. OWEB has contributed $181,750 toward this project, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife contributed $30,000 as well as work on the bypass system.
While we are searching for funding to make up the shortfall, any additional contribution will help reduce the shortfall and help move this project forward with the objective of still getting it completed before the start of irrigation season in April 2015.
Thank you for your support of this important project for the Rogue River.
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
