Wilderness Watch is working to stop yet another project that would poison a lake and a few miles of streams with rotenone, this time in the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness in eastern Oregon. This rugged, high elevation Wilderness was one of the original 54 Wilderness areas designated by the 1964 Wilderness Act. Today, its 69,350 acres protect alpine lakes, headwater streams, and countless native species.
This spring, the Forest Service released a Minimum Requirements Decision Guide (MRDG) on the Upper Malheur Brook Trout Removal Project—a plan to poison High Lake and 1.5 miles of Lake Creek above Lake Creek Falls within the Wilderness. Rather than undertake the required environmental analysis and fulfill its obligation to properly administer the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness, the Forest Service has passed the decision on to the Bonneville Power Administration, an agency with zero wilderness expertise and no statutory mandate to preserve Wilderness.
The original project proposal called for aerially spraying rotenone—a pesticide, insecticide, and piscicide—from a helicopter, in addition to drip station applications of the poison to eradicate brook trout in historically fishless waters and “replace the fishery with sterile rainbow trout” that “will be actively managed.” While we appreciate that the agency has dropped the proposed helicopter use, it has ignored our calls to reject the proposal outright. Instead, an inflatable motorboat and a gas pump, both prohibited by the Wilderness Act, would be used to poison High Lake over the course of anywhere from one to three years, with the area closed to the public for two weeks a year. Wilderness Watch objects to both the use of poison in Wilderness along with the methods of application.
The project’s purported purpose is to kill brook trout, which compete and hybridize with native bull trout residing downstream. But rotenone will poison and kill other aquatic life, including possibly tadpoles of Columbian spotted frogs, a candidate species for Endangered Species Act listing. And rotenone’s broader impacts on the environment are not fully understood. Further, the section to be poisoned is above bull trout habitat, and the lower reaches also contain nonnative fish that will continue to compete with bull trout. Additionally, it is unclear whether the naturally fishless waters will be will be restocked with fish as the proposal originally called for.
Destroying native species and damaging Wilderness ecosystems isn’t the answer for protecting native trout. Moreover, intensive intervention and manipulation projects like this are fundamentally at odds with the Forest Service’s mandate to preserve wilderness character. The appropriate wilderness response to the presence of fish that were introduced a century ago is to let nature takes its course as the Wilderness Act prescribes. If efforts are made to remove the fish, that must be done without motors and poisons. Under no conditions should other fish be placed in this historically fishless area, and if the agencies know this is being considered, it must be disclosed to the public.
The Forest Service needs to fulfill its obligation to properly administer this Wilderness by completing a wilderness-specific environmental impact statement (EIS) rather than passing the decision to the Bonneville Power Administration. The EIS must demonstrate Wilderness Act compliance, analyze impacts to the entire aquatic ecosystem, and rigorously explore alternatives to this ecosystem manipulation and motorized use plan, including a no-action alternative reviewed through a Wilderness Act lens.
Wilderness Watch is working to stop yet another project that would poison a lake and a few miles of streams with rotenone, this time in the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness in eastern Oregon. This rugged, high elevation Wilderness was one of the original 54 Wilderness areas designated by the 1964 Wilderness Act. Today, its 69,350 acres protect alpine lakes, headwater streams, and countless native species.
This spring, the Forest Service released a Minimum Requirements Decision Guide (MRDG) on the Upper Malheur Brook Trout Removal Project—a plan to poison High Lake and 1.5 miles of Lake Creek above Lake Creek Falls within the Wilderness. Rather than undertake the required environmental analysis and fulfill its obligation to properly administer the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness, the Forest Service has passed the decision on to the Bonneville Power Administration, an agency with zero wilderness expertise and no statutory mandate to preserve Wilderness.
The original project proposal called for aerially spraying rotenone—a pesticide, insecticide, and piscicide—from a helicopter, in addition to drip station applications of the poison to eradicate brook trout in historically fishless waters and “replace the fishery with sterile rainbow trout” that “will be actively managed.” While we appreciate that the agency has dropped the proposed helicopter use, it has ignored our calls to reject the proposal outright. Instead, an inflatable motorboat and a gas pump, both prohibited by the Wilderness Act, would be used to poison High Lake over the course of anywhere from one to three years, with the area closed to the public for two weeks a year. Wilderness Watch objects to both the use of poison in Wilderness along with the methods of application.
The project’s purported purpose is to kill brook trout, which compete and hybridize with native bull trout residing downstream. But rotenone will poison and kill other aquatic life, including possibly tadpoles of Columbian spotted frogs, a candidate species for Endangered Species Act listing. And rotenone’s broader impacts on the environment are not fully understood. Further, the section to be poisoned is above bull trout habitat, and the lower reaches also contain nonnative fish that will continue to compete with bull trout. Additionally, it is unclear whether the naturally fishless waters will be will be restocked with fish as the proposal originally called for.
Destroying native species and damaging Wilderness ecosystems isn’t the answer for protecting native trout. Moreover, intensive intervention and manipulation projects like this are fundamentally at odds with the Forest Service’s mandate to preserve wilderness character. The appropriate wilderness response to the presence of fish that were introduced a century ago is to let nature takes its course as the Wilderness Act prescribes. If efforts are made to remove the fish, that must be done without motors and poisons. Under no conditions should other fish be placed in this historically fishless area, and if the agencies know this is being considered, it must be disclosed to the public.
The Forest Service needs to fulfill its obligation to properly administer this Wilderness by completing a wilderness-specific environmental impact statement (EIS) rather than passing the decision to the Bonneville Power Administration. The EIS must demonstrate Wilderness Act compliance, analyze impacts to the entire aquatic ecosystem, and rigorously explore alternatives to this ecosystem manipulation and motorized use plan, including a no-action alternative reviewed through a Wilderness Act lens.
Photo: Columbia spotted frog by Chloe and Trevor Van Loon
