A common storyline in the Capital Press involves a federal judge ruling in favor of environmental groups that have sued a federal agency to protect an endangered species. What happens when a favorable ruling has unintended consequences for other wildlife and humans?

Last week reporter Kyle Odegard brought readers an interesting story that reveals a real-life example.

Court-ordered drawdowns of two Oregon reservoirs, meant to improve passage through two dams for endangered spring chinook and winter steelhead, left a “path of destruction” in their wake.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was forced to empty the Green Peter and Lookout Point reservoirs by a September 2021 federal injunction, the result of a lawsuit filed by environmental groups.

Last October, the South Santiam River below Green Peter Reservoir was choked with dead fish and mud, drinking water was tainted, some residents’ wells dried up and the region lost tourism dollars, officials said.

When reservoirs dropped, kokanee and trout were flushed through dams and killed by barotrauma — a rapid and extreme change in water pressure, similar to scuba divers experiencing the “bends.”

Susan Coleman, the mayor of Sweet Home, Ore., was enjoying the city’s annual harvest festival Oct. 7 until she looked at her phone.

“I started receiving text messages about dead fish, thousands of dead fish,” she said.

Linn County Commissioner Roger Nyquist saw a Facebook photo of kokanee salmon floating belly up below Green Peter Dam and figured it was a hoax.

“This cannot be true,” Nyquist recalled thinking.

It was true.

Residents of the area on the east side of the Willamette Valley believe the government has prioritized an endangered species over people once again.

Communities impacted were part of the spotted owl controversy in the late 1980s and 1990s that damaged the Northwest’s timber economy, costing thousands of jobs. The spotted owl was listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

Some Cascade foothills towns reinvented themselves as outdoor recreation gateways, with the area’s reservoirs as prime attractions.

But when the reservoirs were drawn down, boaters and other tourists stopped coming to the lakes, leaving local businesses dependent on that trade in a lurch.

Did anyone mean for any of this to happen? No. Is anyone taking responsibility? No.

Did emptying the reservoirs actually help the intended fish? A Corps scientist said it isn’t clear — and won’t be for years.

The people who paid the real consequences of actions taken to satisfy the ruling certainly were not helped.