Court Opinion

ID: 9900447
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-18 22:13:04.670679+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:05.586265
License: Public Domain

188                       June 1, 2023                   No. 276

          IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                  STATE OF OREGON

                     DOUGLAS COUNTY,
        a political subdivision of the State of Oregon;
         Umpqua Fishery Enhancement Derby, Inc.,
               an Oregon nonprofit corporation;
                      and Scott Worsley,
                          Petitioners,
                               v.
      OREGON FISH AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION
       and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife,
              an agency of the State of Oregon,
                         Respondents.
                 Marion County Circuit Court
                     22CV13979; N011096

    On petitioners’ petition for reconsideration filed February 7,
2023, respondents’ response to petition for reconsideration
filed March 17, 2023, and petitioners’ reply to respondents’
response to petition for reconsideration filed March 24,
2023. Opinion filed January 25, 2023. 323 Or App 720, 525
P3d 504.
  Dominic M. Carollo, Nolan G. Smith, and Carollo Law
Group, for petition.
   Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General, and Alex Jones, Assistant Attorney
General, for response.
  Before Egan, Presiding Judge, and Lagesen, Chief Judge,
and Kamins, Judge.
   LAGESEN, C. J.
  Reconsideration allowed; former opinion modified and
adhered to as modified.
Cite as 326 Or App 188 (2023)   189
190       Douglas County v. Fish and Wildlife Commission

        LAGESEN, C. J.
         Petitioners have petitioned for reconsideration of our
decision in Douglas County v. Fish and Wildlife Commission,
323 Or App 720, 525 P3d 504 (2023). In that decision, we
transferred this matter to Marion County Circuit Court
pursuant to ORS 14.165(5)(a). We allow the petition to cor-
rect a factual error in our opinion but otherwise adhere to
our prior decision.
         The case concerns a decision to eliminate a sum-
mer steelhead hatchery program located in the Oregon Fish
and Wildlife Commission’s North Umpqua fish management
area. See Douglas County, 323 Or App at 722. Under the
Coastal Multi-Species Conservation and Management Plan
(CMP), the North Umpqua management area is designated
as “Management Area with Two Hatchery Programs.”
Petitioners correctly point out that, in two places, while
addressing petitioners’ argument that the decision to elimi-
nate the program amended an administrative rule, we incor-
rectly stated that the North Umpqua management area is a
“two hatchery” area, rather than a “two-hatchery-program”
area. We accordingly revise the opinion to correct those fac-
tual mistakes.
         At one point, the opinion states, “The CMP desig-
nates the North Umpqua management area as a ‘two hatch-
ery’ area.” Id. at 727. We amend that sentence to state, “The
CMP designates the North Umpqua management area as a
management area with two hatchery programs.”
         At another point, the opinion states, “Although the
CMP refers to the North Umpqua management area[ ] as a
‘two hatchery’ area, that designation appears to flow from
fact—that there are two hatcheries in the area—rather than
from legal principles.” Id. at 728. We amend that sentence
to state, “Although the CMP refers to the North Umpqua
management area as an area with two hatchery programs,
that designation appears to flow from fact—that there are
two hatchery programs in the area—rather than from legal
principles.”
         Our mistaken conflation of the number of hatcher-
ies with the number of hatchery programs in those portions
Cite as 326 Or App 188 (2023)                            191

of our discussion does not alter our ultimate legal conclu-
sion: That the decision to end the hatchery program was
not an amendment to a rule. Id. Our analysis on that point
focused on how the rule at issue regulated the starting and
ending of hatchery programs, not of hatcheries. Specifically,
it turned on the fact that the relevant rule, OAR 635-500-
6775(6)(b), authorized the starting and ending of hatchery
programs: “The commission’s decision to end the hatchery
program, an action expressly contemplated by the rule, did
not change the rule—just as a decision by the commission to
authorize a new hatchery program, as allowed by the rule,
would not change the rule.” Id. Accordingly, having cor-
rected our mistakes, we adhere to our prior legal conclusion.
       Reconsideration allowed; former opinion modified
and adhered to as modified.