5/23/2007 4:00:00 AM Page Springs Hatchery worth a detour
By Geraldine Birch
The smell of honeysuckle and roses pervades the atmosphere at the entrance to the Page Springs Hatchery tucked off Page Springs Road in Cornville.
It's an odd mixture‹fish and flowers, but the hatchery's eight employees do their best to maintain beautiful grounds around the state's largest fish-growing facility while they also raise between 700,000 to 750,000 catchable rainbow (9.5 inches) and approximately 35,000 brown trout a year.
The hatchery at Page Springs has a long and extensive history, according to information from the Arizona Game and Fish Department. Formal development began in 1932 when the Arizona Trout Company obtained a 50-year lease on the site for establishing a private trout hatchery. Prior to that, the landowner James Page had maintained four rearing ponds on the site, primarily for the use of local Verde Valley residents.
In 1949, the state purchased the 116-acre Page Springs property, together with the water rights accruing to it, from Haydee Lane for $50,000. It is that great volume of water that rushes through the fish hatchery from several springs that makes the Page Springs property so valuable for raising fish.
"The water here is not as cold as it should be for raising trout‹it is 68 degrees year around. But the hatchery is located at Page Springs because of the high volume of water that runs into the hatchery every day, 15 million to 17 million gallons or 24 cubic feet per second," said hatchery assistant manager Cindy Dunn.
Unique in the culture of growing fish, the 68-degree water allows for faster fish grow-outs. At Page Springs it takes about nine months to grow a catchable fish as opposed to other hatcheries in the state where the water is cooler, between 45 to 55 degrees, but the time frame for growing a catchable trout at those facilities is 18 months.
Because of the higher water temperature at Page Springs, there is not enough oxygen in the water, so employees must inject liquid oxygen at two points in the raceway where fish are raised. The other downside of raising fish in warmer water is that the water is too warm to transport fish efficiently. As a result, the hatchery has an ice machine capable of making 500 pounds of ice a day, which is used to cool down the water in the hatchery trucks.
A second fish hatchery, Bubbling Ponds, is located on property adjacent to the Page Springs Hatchery. In 1954, a 157-acre parcel of land on the west side of Oak Creek was purchased from Edgar Page, together with water rights for Bubbling Ponds Springs for a total of $90,000. Trout production was terminated at Bubbling Ponds in 1980 because of disease and harvest problems associated with the ponds. Fortunately, Catfish production has dominated since and several of the ponds are being used as refuge for endangered native fishes such as razorback sucker and Colorado River pikeminnow.
Bubbling Ponds Hatchery is also home to a wildlife area where some trails are lined with wild blackberries. The state joined forces with the Northern Arizona Audubon Society to develop the site. Since Arizona lies in the Pacific flyway migration corridor, this wildlife area is used by birds to migrate from Canada to South America.
Dunn noted this year's Birding Festival held at Cottonwood's Dead Horse Ranch State Park also brought out birders at Bubbling Ponds.
"I was told by one man that he had spotted 150 different species and eight different fly catchers," she said.
The beauty of the hatchery is captured in the show pond where the flowering honeysuckle bloom and a large "No Fishing" sign warns off potential fisherman who see large trout swimming lazily in the pond. That sign, however has not stopped raids from otters who were released into the Verde River in the 1980s and who have managed to find Oak Creek and the fish hatchery.
"They cleaned out the show pond," Dunn said, shaking her head, "We trapped and released them to the Verde River at Bartlett Lake, but they are still here."
Thus, the raceways for the thousands of fish are totally covered with a thick bird netting to keep the otters, raccoons, Great Blue Heron and Black-Crowned Night-Heron from raiding the hatchery. There are even electrical wires running along the bottom of the sliding gates to thwart the thieving fish-eaters.
Page Springs Hatchery stocks the entire state of Arizona. In the winter, it stocks lakes and streams in southern Arizona, and in winter, it distributes fish to Flagstaff, Williams and the lakes on the rim. Local Verde Valley rivers are always stocked by the hatchery.
Dunn, who has worked at the facility since 1995, has a bit of a disparaging view of rainbow trout.
"They're kind of sissies Š oxygen has to be 5 millimeters per liter or they will die if it's below that."
At Page Springs Hatchery, those sissies are treated with loving care.
Both hatcheries are open to the public from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., seven days a week, except Thanksgiving and Christmas. The wildlife area is open daily from dawn to dusk. For more details, call 634-4805 or visit www.azgfd.gov/h_f/hatcheries_page_springs.shtml.
