Presenter(s): Nicole Long—Environmental Science and General Music
Faculty Mentor(s): Kathryn Lynch, Sasha White
Session: Prerecorded Poster Presentation
The McKenzie River is a river at work, and the primary tools for harnessing its power have been dams . The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) owns two of the dam systems on the McKenzie, including the Cougar Dam, the tallest dam in Oregon . The Eugene Water and Electricity Board (EWEB) owns the other two dam systems . I conducted my research through observational site visits to all four dam systems as well as other areas, including a salmon spawning channel maintained by EWEB . I also conducted two semi-structured interviews with a McKenzie River Guide and a staff member of the McKenzie Watershed Council . I supplemented my observations and interviews with literature research . I found that the dams on the McKenzie have cut salmonids off from over 20 miles of their ancestral spawning habitat . In addition to being fish passage barriers, the dams have reduced the McKenzie’s riparian zones due to the cessation of nutrient and debris flows . The large size of Cougar Dam’s reservoir decreases the river’s temperature, which disrupts salmon migration and spawning . Native plant and animal species such as cottonwood, alder, caddis fly, and roughskin newts are affected by the simplification of the river and its floodplain due to the dams . Human communities in the McKenzie Watershed are protected from floods by the dams, and they are a necessary reality . However, there is an ethical way to use the dams, such as renovating their infrastructure, and ways to mitigate their effects, such as restoring habitat downstream .