Homeowners deal with different Rogue

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Jan Tarantino looks for marks on her retaining wall left by the Rogue River at its seasonal high before Savage Rapids Dam was removed.Bob Pennell

October 19, 2009

By Mark Freeman

Mail Tribune

ROGUE RIVER — Jan Tarantino peers over her summer patio/dock on what used to be "Savage Lake," looking down at the Rogue River flowing more than 15 feet below.

The dock was a fishing platform and diving board for the past 10 summers when Savage Rapids Dam backed the Rogue up to her dock and countless others along the three-mile impoundment.

But the dam is gone now, and in its wake is a moonscape of river rock and mud with only a river running through it.

"It's still going to be the Rogue River no matter what," Tarantino says. "But it's lost its factor. I guess we'll have a new normal now."

Tarantino is one of more than 100 riverside landowners now coming to grips with how they will deal with the new-look Rogue and their new backyards now that the 88-year-old dam and its summer lake will never return.

Docks that once moored jet skis and powerboats are 20 feet or more above the Rogue since Oct. 9, when demolition crews removed a temporary dam and sent the Rogue hurtling through its original channel for the first time since 1921.

Backyards once created to take advantage of the backed-up summer Rogue now offer virtually no easy access to the river. Boat ramps that once sat in the water are useless. And the new river edges are devoid of riparian vegetation, leaving banks unstable and at risk for erosion.

"It's riverfront property," Tarantino says. "But it's not like it was."

Help may be on the way for those who want assistance in transforming their former lakefront property into what is more commonly seen along the Rogue's reach through Jackson County.

Armed with a state grant, an Ashland conservation group is ready to draft a plan to help willing landowners decide how to plant native vegetation and install riparian zones that will stabilize the banks and create better habitat for the Rogue and its salmon.

The National Center for Conservation Science and Policy will identify ways to jump-start riparian regeneration along the old impoundment's edges before invasive species such as Himalayan blackberry or star thistle swoop in.

"What's there now is aesthetically unpleasing and it's unstable land," says Brian Barr, who oversees aquatic habitat restoration programs for the center. "We don't have trees and bushes and shrubs growing along the stream."

By systematically adding bushes and trees, the banks can get firm, look better to residents and provide habitat for creatures ranging from birds and insects to the aquatic critters that rely on them.

"I think we're in this boat together," Barr says. "I think there are things we can do to help both our needs."

The needs of upstream riparian zones was one of the few issues not addressed in environmental studies that led to the $39.3 million project to remove the fish-killing dam and install pumps to deliver Grants Pass Irrigation District water.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation was able to secure federal funding for the project, largely as a way to improve fish passage for the Rogue's wild coho salmon, which are protected as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act.

After lengthy consideration, however, upstream riparian improvements to the unnatural lake became a secondary issue that didn't get the immediate attention that dam-removal did, said Bob Hamilton, the bureau's project manager.

"We can't justify that as a fish-restoration activity," Hamilton said.

So Barr's center has spearheaded that effort, garnering a $23,300 grant from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board and another donation from a private foundation to create the vegetation plan and reach out to interested landowners, Barr said.

The plan won't help with extending docks or platforms, and it won't pay for trees, Barr said. But it will provide a blueprint for creating a healthy riparian zone.

That might not be good enough for Tarantino.

She is considering a look more in tune to her well-tended yard.

The worthless concrete boat ramp might be turned into a stairway leading to a second, lower terrace closer to what now will be the more normal river elevation.

Tarantino isn't interested in recreating Barr's idea of prime riparian zone — trees and brush growing lush and high.

"I want it manicured," she says. "I want it to where it looks like it's a little loved."

L.H. "Kirt" Kirtley has little love for the new-look Rogue outside his house of 47 years.

The strip of riverfront land that once housed his dock is more than 14 feet above the river now, and its look reopens old wounds over the fight by Kirtley and others to keep the dam and their summer lake.

"We had a three-mile lake there," the 94-year-old Kirtley fumes. "Now, we got what amounts to a creek."

Kirtley believes the lost lake harms the value of his property, and he wants it re-appraised for taxes. He wants nothing to do with Barr's riparian project, and blames WaterWatch attorney Bob Hunter's 21-year push to remove Savage Rapids Dam for what he sees as a major set-back to the economic health of the Rogue River area.

"I just hope he's satisfied with what he's got," Kirtley says of Hunter. "This whole thing was a farce. The biggest farce we've ever seen around here."

Tarantino laments the loss of the slow water where her daughters swam and motored boats in the summer.

Her patio now overlooks a bouldered riffle that appears to be classic water to fish for the Rogue's two runs of steelhead.

An avid ocean angler, Tarantino plans to learn how to fish rivers — including the new run in her new backyard.

"It's a lost thing, but a good memory," she says of Savage Lake. "Now, we'll find new memories."

Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470 or e-mail at mfreeman@mailtribune.com.

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