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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, is now using the money for staff salaries instead.

(Oregon DMV)

Spend a little more to put an Oregon salmon license plate on your vehicle, and your money is supposed to directly benefit the iconic fish.

One state agency promised to use the money exclusively to undo roadblocks impairing salmon streams across Oregon. Culverts, the drains that carry creeks beneath roads, frequently stop salmon migration to rearing habitat.

But that promise is being broken, The Oregonian found.

Since 2013, the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board hasn't spent a cent of salmon plate money on fixing road impacts.

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

Across Oregon, nearly 32,000 people 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 in the late 1990s, the state had just begun developing plans to help salmon recover from the brink of extinction. The plate was a small way for drivers to help.

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

State parks have used the money on dozens of restoration projects.

State law allows OWEB to spend the money on a range of watershed conservation activities. But online, drivers considering which plate to buy were promised that OWEB would send their money "directly to projects that address road-related impacts to salmon and trout streams."

That hasn't been happening.

Renee Davis, OWEB's deputy director, said the idea to fund staff salaries with salmon plate money didn't come from her agency but from the state Legislative Fiscal Office, which advises the state Legislature on budgeting.

Even if the money isn't going to projects in the field, Davis said: "I think that it is doing good and it's directly related to the expectation of those investments around conserving water quality and habitat."

Davis said the online reference hadn't been written by her agency and would be corrected after The Oregonian's inquiry. It has since been changed, now promising the money will be "granted by the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board to activities that support the restoration and protection of watersheds, native fish and wildlife, and water quality."

But even that new promise is misleading, suggesting that drivers' money will be awarded as grants when it's being used for staff salaries and a website project.

Terry Thompson, a former state legislator from Lincoln County who authored the 1997 bill creating the salmon plate, said the money was meant for projects on the ground, not a Salem bureaucrat's salary. He was infuriated to hear how the money was now being spent.

"That wasn't what it was designed to do at all," Thompson said. "If they're going to do that, I'll go to the Legislature and get them to fix it."

There are signs the plate's popularity is waning. Of the 11 percent of Oregon drivers with specialty plates, far more now choose the state's Crater Lake plate, which benefits the national park. That plate requires drivers to pay only a one-time $20 surcharge, not the recurring $30 fee for salmon plates.

Thompson said he's proud to have a salmon plate – COHO 1 – on his pickup. But not all fish advocates are as enthusiastic.

Jim Myron, a Native Fish Society lobbyist, doesn't have one. He said he'd rather spend the money supporting environmental groups. "There are more important things for me to be spending my money on," he said.

Steve Pedery, conservation director at Oregon Wild, doesn't have one, either. He said it's well known that the state was using salmon plate revenue to paper over declining lottery revenue instead of finding a new source, a practice known as back-filling.

"There's this hocus pocus in the budget," he said. "It's something anyone who cares about salmon should be frustrated by."

-- Rob Davis