Salmon return to Crystal Springs Creek
Editor,
Coho salmon are spawning in Southeast Portland’s Crystal Springs Creek this fall for the first time in decades. Salmon can find their way farther upstream because of recent projects to remove culverts that prohibited fish passage. Since 2008, Environmental Services has worked with several partners to remove seven Crystal Springs Creek culverts.
In October, Environmental Services fish biologist Melissa Brown used an underwater camera to capture video of a pair of wild coho salmon spawning just upstream from one of the culvert removal projects.
“This work has allowed wild salmon to return to the city for the first time in a generation,” said Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish. “Crystal Springs Creek has Portland's best fish habitat, but it's been inaccessible to salmon for 40 years, until now.”
When the federal government listed Portland salmon and steelhead as threatened species in 1998, the Portland City Council directed Environmental Services to lead salmon recovery efforts. Environmental Services restoration projects not only improve water quality and manage high stream flows to protect public health and safety, but they also create inviting habitat that native salmon require.
Crystal Springs is an important tributary to Johnson Creek, which flows to the Willamette River. Its naturally cool and steady year-round flow provides ideal salmon and steelhead habitat. Native salmon have also been found in Johnson Creek as far upstream as Gresham.
Steelhead trout, coho and Chinook salmon spend part of their life cycle in Crystal Springs Creek. They migrate to the Pacific Ocean then return to their original spawning grounds where they lay and fertilize eggs, then die.
It's critical that observers keep their distance from spawning areas, keep dogs out of the creek, and do not disturb fish carcasses which provide nutrients essential to aquatic life.
Linc Mann
Portland Bureau of Environmental Svcs.
Victim needs financial help
Editor,
On August 5, 25-year-old Kelsey Zionskowski got off of a TriMet bus onto S.E. McLoughlin Boulevard near S.E. River Road, a mile south of Sellwood. She was on her way home from work at Oregon Health Sciences University, where she is working as a Clinical Student Worker.
Kelsey walked to a crosswalk and was standing waiting to cross McLoughlin. She was struck in a hit-and-run incident by a southbound car when it left its lane of travel. Kelsey was seriously injured, with massive trauma to both legs. After being transported by AMR to OHSU, she lost her left leg. Her right leg was severely injured as well. She also suffered other injuries in the crash and will never fully recover. Several surgeries are still in her future.
Kelsey is a mother of a 5 year old son, Santino, and is also a medical student at Portland State University, majoring in Psychology.
Kelsey is facing overwhelming medical costs and needs help from the community. If you would like to donate to help Kelsey, an account has been set up at Clackamas Federal Credit Union in her name. You can donate in person at any branch of CFCU or you can mail a check to the Clackamas County Peace Officers' Benevolent Foundation at P.O. Box 678, Clackamas, 97015.
Donations are tax deductible and a tax receipt will be mailed to you promptly. Make your checks out to the CCPOBF and put “Kelsey” in the memo line. Or, to find branches of the Clackamas Federal Credit Union, go to their website at: www.ClackamasFCU.org.
The Clackamas County Peace Officers
Benevolent Foundation
Visitor impressed by Woodstock’s “charrette”
Editor,
As a visitor in Woodstock from Roanoke, Virginia, I very much enjoyed attending some of the October “charrette” sessions. The Woodstock neighborhood has huge potential for even greater achievements. Active neighborhoods are our best opportunity for quickly improving local life to benefit all people and the planet. Enlarging initiatives can be disorienting as new possibilities emerge. May the outcome of the charrette sessions be productive.
Pete Johnson Jr.
via e-mail
Speed enforcement on McLoughlin Blvd
Editor,
I have just read the letter in the December BEE about a speed trap on McLoughlin Boulevard.
Your “Editor's Note” was incorrect. The MapQuest.com website tells me that the 11500 block is actually south of downtown Milwaukie, roughly at the sewage treatment plant. There is no cross street there, and no building close to the road.
There is often a speed trap there for northbound traffic – McLoughlin is downhill approaching the River Road intersection, and traffic tends to be going faster than the speed limit of 40. The limit drops to 30 at River Road, and the railroad overpass provides a good hiding place for the radar car. I suspect the radar may be looking at southbound traffic also.
Keith Younger,
a long-time Oak Grove area resident
EDITOR’S NOTE: That location would be several blocks south of where we believed we saw an 11500 number on a building while driving McLoughlin to check out that letter. Since the Advantis Credit Union headquarters, located about where we thought we saw that number, is listed on its website as being at 10501 S.E. Main, and Main parallels McLoughlin, Mr. Younger may well be right. If so, the enforcement van the letter-writer deplored would still have been located just south of Sellwood, and a long distance north of the Oak Grove Fred Meyer store where the she believed that address was located. As a rule, it is good to observe the posted speed limit in and around the City of Milwaukie, since it is a lower limit than the ODOT-posted speed limit both north and south of the community on Highway 99E.
