A6 T H E BULLETIN • FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 2013
Steelhead
trout, to waters upstream of the Pelton Round Butte dam
complex started in 2007, with the release, of the hatcheryraised young of wild fish behind the dam complex. More releases followed as Portland G e neral E l e ctric and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs — the owners of the three dams — built a $100 million submerged tower in 2009 to improve water quality along the river and allow fish to move downstream of the dams and eventually to the PacificOcean. Last year the first returning adult steelhead, and salmon, w ere retrieved just d o w nstream of the dams, trucked upstream and released into Lake Billy Chinook. Salmon on the Deschutes aren't under the same federal protections as the steelhead. S teelhead r e l eases u p stream of the dam complex were focused on W h ychus and McKay creeks, as well as the Crooked River, said Julie Keil, director of hydro licensing for PGE. Some of the fish may eventually swim in the Upper Deschutes River, but the natural barriers of Steelhead Falls and Big Falls will keep them from swimming as far as Bend. The new federal designation will allow water users and other parties involved with the s teelhead reintroduction t o work together, she said, without the "specter of legal action under the ESA" hanging over projects.
Fluoride
B ut Gietzen said the r e search he has read raises trou-
Continued from A1 The label, which exempts reintroduced steelhead from ESA protections, becomes official in about a month and will last for 12 years. "It is part of the reintroduction effort," said Scott Carlon, a fish biologist with the agency in Portland. "If somebody is doing an otherwise lawful activity, they are not liable for take with this special designation." T he designation wil l n o t affect state fishing r egulations, which allow for an annual season for hatchery-bred steelhead on the Deschutes, he said. It will still be illegal to intentionally catch wild steelhead on the Lower Deschutes and reintroduced steelhead on the Upper Deschutes. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has made such designations before, such as in 2011 for bull trout being reintroduced to the Clackamas River. But Carlon said this is the first time NOAA Fisheries has made the designation. The agency started work on the designation in 2008, but other projects facing l egal deadlines took priority in the meantime. "It just took us awhile to get it done," Carlon said. The reintroduction of steel-
head, an ocean-going rainbow
Continued from A1 They say they have the science to show that possible side effects of fluoridation could make people sick or stupid in the name of preventing tooth
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Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin file photo
that the overwhelming majority of medical experts say addbling issues. ing fluoride at the proper level For example, he and other issafe and effective. opponents s a y , flu o r idaAnother concern raised last tion has links to cancer and fall by Wichitans Opposed to arthritis. Fluoridation was that fluoride Proponents, however, note additives are d i fferent and
more troublesome than the naturally occurring kind. Proponents countered that most of the fluoride used in water systems is from phosphate rock — which, only after the fluoride is extracted, is used to make fertilizer.
Trust in the past y ear, tho u g h most of the activ-
ity is o n the refi-
nancing side. The CFPB is hcI e ~ mp"e also giving small loans a nalysts fl e x ibility" lenders flexibility say. with a more ex— Camden Fine, oflc type o f mort A majority of President and gage caiied "bai communitybanks chief executive, loon-payment keep their mortIndependent gages in-house CommunityBankers products, which anyway "A long-term of America require borrowconsequence of ers to pay lower this rule is it could amounts initially shift at least a certain class of and save some of the biggest borrowers toward communi- p r i ncipal payments for the end ty banks and away from the o f the life of the loan, tend to be big national players because popular in rural communities community banks will have a n d small towns. These loans more flexibility," said Cam- a r e also not subject to the 43 den Fine, president and chief percent requirement but can executive of t h e I n depen- s t ill b e considered qualified dent Community Bankers of m o r tgages. America. The criteria for these balThe industry trade group l o o n-payment l o an s are fought hard to exempt banks p r etty narrow. Lenders have with less than $10 billion in as- to make at least 50 percent of sets, but Fine said he was none- their mortgages in counties theless pleased that the con- t h a t areruralorunderserved, sumer bureauaccommodated and these areas can have no so many of his members. more than two major mortSmaller lenders have start- g age lenders.
An Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife technician transfers steelhead to a tank for the Round Butte Hatchery in 2012. through Prineville and could soon boast a steelhead run. "It is really a big thing for us to be getting this (designa-
tion)," Roppe said. — Reporter: 541-617-7812, ddarling@bendbulletin.com
decay. "I am very concerned," said Mark Gietzen, a l o n gtime anti-abortion crusader wh o heads the Kansas Republican Assembly, which calls itself the Republican wing of the Republican Party. Four months ago, Gietzen had no opinion on fluoride. The topic put him t o sleep. But he was awakened during the contentious campaign in Wichita. Gietzen is now leading an effort to impose new statewide regulations that would include warning notices on water bills, as well as restrictions on the type ofsubstances that can be added to tap water. No bill has been introduced yet, but advocates of fluoridation say they are poised for a fight. "The a nti-fluoride f o l k s are pretty passionate," said Kevin Robertson, executive director of the Kansas Dental Association. However, theirarguments against water fluoridation are based on what Robertson calls "junk science," and he vows that his group and others will work hard to convince lawmakers of that. "We're going to try to keep as much of Kansas fluoridated as possible," he said. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, water f l u oridation ranks as one of the 10 greatest public h ealth a c hievements of the 20th century. It has led to a dramatic decrease in c a v i ties a m ong America's youths. Most people in the Kansas City area drink f l uoridated water. So do nearly two thirds of K ansans, according t o t h e federal government. Compare that to 74 percent nationwide and upward of 80 percent in Missouri. One reason the percentage isn't higher in the Sunflower State is that Wichita, the largest city in Kansas, has never fluoridated its water. So a national foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, sought to change that. It spearheaded a petition drive to put a measure onthe general election ballot that would have forced the local water utility to bring the fluoride level up to the recommended amount. But when the votes were tallied, the vote was 60 to 40 percent against, thanks to a wellorganized and well-financed opposition. R obertson attributed t h e result to doubts raised by fluoride opponents in ads paid for by the conservative Kansas Taxpayers Network. "They dumped so much misinformation out," he said. "The Internet is so full of stuff, and the people opposed to it threw out so much of it."
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The designation is beneficial to towns around Central Oregon as well, said Prineville Mayor Betty Roppe. Like water users, cities will be protected from any take of steelhead. The Crooked River runs
ordi n g to t h e Nati on a l A s sociation of Federal Credit Unions.
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