Upper Deschutes Basin steelhead listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act
Today, January 15, 2025 the National Marine Fisheries Service’s “non-essential experimental population” (NEP) designation for Upper Deschutes Basin steelhead expires — meaning all steelhead above the Pelton Round Butte dams are now officially listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
For the last 12 years, the NEP designation allowed Upper Basin water users — namely regional irrigation districts whose activity impacts steelhead life history — to conduct their otherwise lawful activity without violating the ESA.
You may have also heard that record numbers of steelhead returned to the Upper Deschutes Basin in 2024.
This is exciting news, but out of the 700+ steelhead that made their way back to the Upper Basin, only 3 were born naturally in rivers and streams. In other words, a staggering 99% of these returning steelies were born in a hatchery.
Why does this matter?
For over a century, irrigation activity and dams have degraded habitat conditions and reduced flows in Upper Basin waterways, leaving fewer opportunities for returning fish — wild or hatchery — to survive and successfully spawn the next generation of steelhead.
In 2020, the Deschutes Basin Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) extended an additional 30 years of legal coverage to irrigation districts for the ongoing impacts their activities inflict on steelhead and other listed species in the Upper Basin.
Unfortunately, the anemic provisions of the HCP all but ensure it will continue to fall short of restoring the habitat conditions steelhead require to meaningfully reestablish naturally reproducing populations in the Upper Basin.
Learn more about the state of steelhead, how irrigation has transformed Upper Basin waterways like the Crooked River and Whychus Creek, and how we can better manage water to restore steelhead habitat and support population recovery by exploring our series on Deschutes steelhead below.
