A 20-year-old man allegedly broke into a nonprofit fish hatchery on the Southern Oregon Coast on Sunday, April 21, and dumped bleach into a rearing pond, killing 18,000 salmon smolts.

“It was quite ugly,” said Deborah Yates, president of the Gardiner-Reedsport-Winchester Bay Salmon Trout Enhancement Program.

The chinook salmon smolts, which hatched in late January at the facility in Gardiner, were about 3 inches long and set to be released into the wild in June, Yates said.

Joshua Alexander Heckathorn of Gardiner faces charges of second-degree burglary, second-degree criminal mischief and second-degree trespass. Yates said the break-in appears to be random, and she’d never seen or met Heckathorn.

Case documents

Heckathorn was arrested Tuesday, April 23, by the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and released from jail without posting bail the next day, according to jail logs.

He is scheduled to appear in Douglas County Circuit Court on May 16.

The crimes were reported to authorities at about 7:30 a.m. on Monday, April 22, according to a probable cause affidavit in the case.

A volunteer told a deputy that sometime after noon the previous day a suspect came onto the property and forced entry into a storage shed by using an object to strike the door handle until the locking mechanism broke. The person took a bottle of bleach and poured it into a rearing pond, the volunteer added.

At about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, the deputy saw Heckathorn walking near the entrance of the hatchery.

At about 6:50 p.m. the deputy contacted Heckathorn, who was behind the hatchery’s locked gate and no trespassing signs. He was shaking nervously, sweating and at one point vomited.

“Heckathorn reported having trouble remembering details of the day due to being high on marijuana at the time of the crime,” the probable cause affidavit states.

He admitted to being at the hatchery and seeing no trespassing signs on both occasions, and admitted to moving around items from the storage shed, according to the affidavit.

Heckathorn remembered removing a jug of bleach from the shed and setting it on a concrete support of the pond but didn’t recall if he dumped bleach into the water, according to the affidavit.

The Reedsport Police Department and the Oregon State Police fish and wildlife unit are assisting with the investigation.

“Solving this case is the result of collaboration and good police work,” Sheriff John Hanlin said in a news release.

Fishing impacts

The fish are an important component of the commercial and recreational fishing industries on the West Coast from the Umpqua River to Alaska, Yates said.

And the Southern Oregon Coast gets a big boost when the salmon return from their 3-5 year journey north. About 1% to 3% of salmon return to the area.

“It’s been estimated that on a good year, our fish coming back from Alaska bring about $1 million into the greater Reedsport community,” Yates said.

The loss of that many salmon equals about $130,000 to $390,000 in missed economic impact, based on Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife calculations, Yates said.

The nonprofit hatchery, which relies on volunteers and gets advice from ODFW, has about 60,000 fish, including trout, remaining in Gardiner.

“You put so much time and effort into raising them that you become attached to them. When something happens to them, it hits your heart,” Yates said.

She added that she’s been very impressed with the reaction to the crimes.

“People are just appalled, and they are reaching out in many ways to try to help us,” Yates said.