Two Sweet Home-area waterfront streambed restoration projects were on display Thursday, Oct. 8, for some 60 participants in a Calapooia and Santiam River Basins Tour organized by the Governor’s Natural Resources Office.
The public officials, business leaders, landowners and media representatives who took part in the tour visited various private and public restoration, conservation and development sites in the Calapooia and Santiam river basins to learn how volunteer groups are working with elected officials and various government agencies to restore and preserve critical fish and wildlife habitat.
Stops included: the site on the Calapooia River where the old Brownsville Dam stood until it was removed two years ago; a visit to the 3-Mile Project Site northeast of Brownsville, where landowners are collaborating with public agencies in the improvement of the riverbed and banks; the Ames Creek restoration project just east of Weddle Bridge in Sweet Home’s Sankey Park; a stop along McDowell Creek where landowner Dan Knebel is improving the stream banks along his property; and two locations along the North Santiam River.
Eric Hartstein, coordinator of the South Santiam Watershed Council, said the event brought together “stakeholders” who are interested in seeing the recovery of local steelhead and salmon populations.
“We’re showing them what’s happening here on the ground, instead of people just telling them about restoration,” he said. “How it’s being played out through community collaboration.”
During the stop in Sweet Home, participants lunched on Weddle Bridge while Darren Utley of the Sweet Home Ranger District, who was project manager for the Ames Creek Restoration Project in 2003, described how various local contractors, under the direction of general contractor Rod Wolfer, were able to restore the creek channel, which for decades had flowed through a mill dam and log pond upstream from where Weddle Bridge stands now.
The restoration project required diverting the stream through a 10-inch pipe,which Utley said was the biggest challenge, and placing some 1,600 tons of rock in the stream and along the banks to stabilize them.
He said another challenge was clearing the channel under the bridge, since normal equipment used for such a task would not fit under the span. He said Jimmy Tack and Danny Juza were able to do that job with machinery they had, which normally was used to build trails.
One other challenge, Utley said, was protecting the resident ducks.
“People were concerned about the ducks and the bridge,” he said. “If any ducks got hurt, we were in deep trouble.”
Utley said he chose local contractors because he believed they would have a higher level of commitment to the task than an outside company might.
“You’re living here among neighbors,” he said. “You bring in a contractor from Boise or Spokane, they’ll pack up and they’re living 1,000 miles away.”
The channel restoration survived some severe tests in storms that came in the first few years after it was completed, he said.
The last step of the project was replanting the banks with native vegetation, Utley said. He said local students were actively involved in several phases, including catching marine life before the stream was redirected, and planting the banks.
After the stop in Sweet Home, the tour moved on to Knebel’s farm on McDowell Creek. He told participants that he decided to improve the streambed along his property after watching his land erode away.
He said he attended a class for small landowners and learned that grants were available to do restoration work along the creek.
Scott Wright, a restoration expert with the River Design Group in Corvallis, explained how large woody debris was placed in the stream and along the bank to create cover and refuge for fish, create holes and slow water flow.
He said the next step of the project is to plant willows along the bank to provide stream shade and reduce the chance of noxious weeds invading the site.
Sue Knapp of the Governor’s Natural Resources Office, one of the tour organizers, said that the aim of the event was to raise awareness of the opportunities to collaborate in improving watersheds €“ the land that catches precipitation and drains to a water body.
“There are a lot of opportunities for not only partnerships, but funding,” she said. “Restoration is important not only because of its ecological benefits to fish, but for the community.”
She said the state’s development of a recovery plan for salmon and steelhead has increased the perception that waterway restoration is necessary.
“We have a lot of habitat fixes that need to take place,” she said.