PORTLAND, Ore. – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Oregon Parks and Recreation Department alert Fall Creek Reservoir boaters that the North Shore Park and Boat Ramp will be closed from September 2015 through as late as June 2016 due to construction.
North Shore Park and Boat Ramp is part of the Fall Creek State Recreation Area about 25 miles southeast of Eugene, Oregon, and is usually open April 1 through Sept. 30. This closure will impact one month at the end of the 2015 recreation season and as much as three months at the start of the 2016 recreation season.
The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department operates six other recreation facilities, including two other boat ramps, at Fall Creek Reservoir. Visit http://www.oregonstateparks.org/index.cfm?do=parkPage.dsp_parkPage&parkId=176 for information.
Crews will use the North Shore entrance road, boat trailer parking lot and viewpoint parking lot as staging areas to build an improved water supply system for the new Fall Creek Adult Fish Facility. The facility, which will start construction below the dam in late 2016, will enable the safe trapping and transport of wild adult spring Chinook salmon and other fish upstream of Fall Creek Dam, where they will be released to spawn naturally.
The existing facility does not meet current fish handling standards. Fish have to be physically handled, contributing to injuries, stress and high levels of pre-spawning mortality.
Replacement of the existing facility is required by the National Marine Fisheries and U.S. Fish and Wildlife services’ 2008 Willamette Project Biological Opinions, and is part of the Corps’ ongoing efforts to improve conditions for Upper Willamette River spring Chinook salmon and winter steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.
For more information about the Corps’ Willamette BiOp Implementation Program, visit http://www.nwp.usace.army.mil/Missions/Environment/Fish/WVPBiOP.aspx.
Release no. 15-030