BEND, OR -- Bend City Council, the Parks and Rec board and an advisory committee have finally agreed on a fish passage plan at Mirror Pond. City Manager Eric King tells KBND News, "If you think of fish ladders, there are different options that were evaluated. And what the group landed on was actually a cost-effective, natural fish passage." It's called a Nature-Like Fishway and would use rocks and other organic materials to simulate the hydraulic conditions of natural channels. 

The dam that forms the pond in downtown Bend was built in 1911, "This is the last remaining barrier, in terms of fish passage, along the Deschutes River," says King, "So there is a lot of importance, and I think some potentially good opportunities to fund the project because it is now the remaining barrier."

Securing that funding is the next step, along with determining who will own and operate the passage. It’s a tricky question given the hydro dam is owned by Pacific Power, "It’s not a city facility. Parks benefits from it because Drake Park is right along, along with some homeowners. So there’s multiple partners involved; and anytime there’s multiple parties, things just take a little bit longer." And, he says negotiating a fish passage plan has been in the works for years, "That was kind of a condition of a resolution that both the Parks board and the City Council passed in 2019, that said ‘we are interested in preserving Mirror Pond at its current level, but we want to see some environmental benefits, including fish passage, to be evaluated.’ We’ve done that. So, it’s all part of a bigger plan to go back to this 2015 vision of Mirror Pond."