Oregon salmon license plate money will again help fish, not a Salem bureaucrat

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Oregon introduced the salmon license plate in the late 1990s as a way for drivers to help fish recovery efforts. One state agency, the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, began using the money for staff salaries instead.

(Oregon DMV)

Money from Oregon's salmon license plates will again be spent to help the iconic fish, not pay a Salem bureaucrat's salary.

Two Oregon legislators, Sen. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay, and Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, have proposed a bill requiring salmon plate money to be spent on real-life projects benefiting the fish.

The bill addresses the findings of a December investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive. We reported that a state agency, the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, was breaking a promise to use the money exclusively to undo roadblocks impairing salmon streams.

OWEB told drivers their money would go straight into the field to fix culverts, the drains that carry creeks beneath roads. They frequently stop salmon migration to rearing habitat.

Instead, drivers were paying the salary and office expenses of OWEB's small grants administrator in Salem. Drivers were also set to pay for a $150,000 website improvement to make it possible to apply online for grants from OWEB, another project that wouldn't have retrofitted a single culvert.

That will now change.

OWEB supports the legislation. OWEB's deputy director, Renee Davis, said the agency was already drafting an internal proposal to make the change.

The agency will have to shift how it pays for the administrative costs the salmon plate revenue had been covering. Meta Loftsgaarden, OWEB's executive director, said she didn't yet know how the agency would do that or what impact it would have.

The legislation was drafted by and introduced at the request of Terry Thompson, a Lincoln County commissioner. Thompson, a former legislator, authored the original bill that created the salmon plate in the late 1990s.

Thompson, like many other anglers in the state, was furious to learn from The Oregonian/OregonLive how the money was being spent. He said the bill would ensure the money went where it was originally intended to.

"I just felt it was the right thing to do to give clear guidance that they weren't supposed to spend it on administration but physical projects that benefit salmon," Thompson said. "I'm still [upset] that they did that. It was just wrong."

Nearly 32,000 Oregonians have salmon plates on their cars and trucks. They pay an extra $30 every two years to buy or renew them. When the plate was created, the state had just begun developing plans to help salmon recover from the brink of extinction.

Since then, plate fees have raised more than $9.5 million, divided equally between OWEB and state parks.

While state parks used the money on dozens of restoration projects, OWEB stopped doing that in 2013.

The bill, HB 3333, is co-sponsored by Reps. Deborah Boone, D-Cannon Beach, and Wayne Krieger, R-Gold Beach, and Sens. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, Jeff Kruse, R-Roseburg, and Doug Whitsett, R-Klamath Falls.

-- Rob Davis

rdavis@oregonian.com

503.294.7657

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