Blue Sky Habitat

County: Jackson

Watershed: Upper Rogue River

Description: The restoration actions on this project include riparian rehabilitation and large wood placement. These actions work synergistically to restore natural stream processes, improve water quality, and enhance habitat conditions.

The riparian rehabilitation will focus on removing noxious weeds like non-native Himalayan blackberry and allow for the native community to grow back along with the supplemental planting of native species.

The placement of large wood creates crucial habitat for the four species of anadromous fish as well as the other aquatic organisms that live in the creek. By enhancing side channels with large wood placement, winter stream flows will access these channels, offering rearing habitat for juvenile fish of the threatened Coho Salmon. Side channels are important in the process of connecting streams to their floodplains, which supports a resilient riparian plant community.

This project builds on the eight completed fish passage barrier removals in Salt Creek, and the local residents are excited and supportive of completing more collaborative ecological restoration in the coming years.

Native fish benefited: Coho and Chinook salmon; steelhead; cutthroat and rainbow trout

County: Jackson

Watershed: Middle Rogue River

Description: Phase 2 of this project, led by The Freshwater Trust, will restore 5 acres of native riparian forest burned by the Almeda Fire of 2020 to provide shade and stability within the activated floodplain and filter sediments and nutrients.

(Phase 1, led by the Rogue River Watershed Council, removed historic dikes and reconnected existing side channel features to help restore historic stream function. This allows the stream to access the floodplain during high water events.)

Once complete, the entire project will result in a reconnected floodplain with diverse and dynamic instream features shaded by a native species dominated riparian forest.

Native fish benefited: Coho and Chinook salmon; steelhead; cutthroat trout; Pacific lamprey; speckled dace

County: Clackamas

Watershed: Sandy River

Description: The Freshwater Trust and US Forest Service are taking the lead on this project on behalf of the Sandy River Basin Partners. The project will address primary limiting factors by increasing off channel habitat and floodplain connectivity and large wood abundance on Still Creek and by
restoring fish passage at a road crossing on Henry Creek.

The proposed project is part of a collaborative, multi-year effort to accelerate recovery of naturally functioning conditions within prioritized stream channels and riparian areas of the Sandy River basin. Effectiveness monitoring and observational data demonstrate that these actions have consistently achieved the desired habitat and fish response.

Native fish benefited: Chinook and Coho salmon; steelhead

County: Clatsop

Watershed: Lower Columbia River

Description: The project area is located directly adjacent to the Lewis & Clark National Wildlife Refuge on the Columbia River. In the project area, foraging and rearing habitat for all local and upriver stocks of juvenile salmonids have been lost or are extremely limited by past land use developments.

The restoration efforts will reconnect and enhance Columbia River mainstem-adjacent habitat bisected by a railroad, reestablishing juvenile salmonid access to critical rearing habitats.

The project will create two new 100% fish passable openings in the railroad prism providing access to over 24 acres of rearing habitat for salmonids. New railroad breaches, channel excavation, and a dense native planting effort will fully connect the site for fish use, significantly reduce the distances between existing available habitat patches, increase wetland capacity, increase prey resources and foraging interface between the site and the Columbia River mainstem, and restore natural hydrologic connectivity.

Native fish benefited: Coho, Chum and Chinook salmon; steelhead

County: Hood River

Watershed: Mid-Columbia River

Description: Hood River Watershed Group and the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs have prioritized the Lower East Fork Hood River and Baldwin Creek for their potential to support threatened steelhead and salmon habitat.

Restoring continuous fish passage to up to two miles of spawning and rearing habitat for salmon and steelhead on Baldwin Creek will provide significant ecological lift in the Lower East Fork Hood River subbasin, increasing the presence and abundance of native fish above the barriers.

In a watershed with limited cold, clearwater habitat, creating passage at the barriers will provide critical year-round habitat, with particular importance during low summer flows and high velocity winter flows. This type of habitat will become increasingly important as climate change emphasizes these extremes. Channel, floodplain, and riparian restoration will increase quality and amount of habitat throughout the project reach where there are currently limited rest areas, no large wood, and no floodplain connection.

With the placement of large wood structures and reconnection of floodplain or off-channel habitat, the project area will get the “push” it needs to increase floodplain connection and restore natural hydrologic processes like nutrient cycling, energy dissipation, and deposition of gravels.

Native fish benefited: Chinook and Coho salmon; steelhead