Restoration projects popping up around Oregon

Oregon State University marine extention agent Paul Heikkila plants willow trees to stabilize the bank of the Coquille River, a prime salmon stream on Oregon's South Coast. Many landowners in the area are working to improve salmon habitat, says Heikkila.

By Theresa Novak A big part of the future of Oregon's coastal coho and other salmon species depends on the success of salmon restoration projects by private landowners such as Mike Knapp. Since more than half of the salmon habitat in Oregon is in private ownership, private landowners have a more direct link to the health of salmon habitat. Knapp figures that makes salmon recovery a more personal issue for him. Langlois and North Langlois creeks, both good coho streams, flow through Knapp's seaside cattle ranch near Port Orford. "We always thought of the salmon as neighbors," said Knapp, whose family has seen the salmon runs dwindle in the past 50 years.

Knapp supports direct landowner action on behalf of fish to help restore the habitat. So in the past four years, Knapp has launched his own restoration project. So far, he has:

• Placed hatchery boxes for salmon fry at the edge of the Langlois and North Langlois creeks.
  
• Built a shallow lake to serve as a rearing ground for the fry until they can head out to the ocean.
  
• Built 7.25 miles of fences to keep cattle from entering the salmon streams.
  
• Installed three large cattle-watering systems that pipe fresh water to large vats in the grazing fields, encouraging cattle to avoid the fenced stream bank.
  
• Planted 1,680 willows along the creek edge for shade and filtration. He also planted 4,572 cedars for shade and future sources of woody debris.

In the past two seasons, Knapp has seen the number of returning coho increase from 15 to more than 120. While that sort of observation seems promising, the success of such restoration projects will require more time and independent study, according to the Governor's Watershed Enhancement Board, which is helping to evaluate the success of Oregon's salmon and watershed recovery plan. In the past two years, 1,234 restoration projects have been reported to the Watershed Enhancement Board, known as GWEB for short. More than 84 percent of those projects were on private forest lands. Knapp's efforts are among the 16 percent in agricultural and ranch ownership. So far, about 30 percent of those restoration projects have been evaluated for their effectiveness, according to the GWEB report, which states that state, federal and private spending for these projects amounts to about $20 million a year in public and private monies. Most of these projects involved removing culverts that divert salmon streams; stabilizing eroding streambanks and adding shade by planting native streamside vegetation; adding woody debris to streams for salmon spawning and leaving shade trees along creeks during logging operations to keep streams cool and provide future downed logs for spawning habitat. Knapp said that he started the restoration projects in hopes that the National Marine Fisheries Service, which administers the Endangered Species Act for fish species, would not list coastal coho without giving Oregon's recovery plan a chance to work first.

An active resotration project. The idea here is to add big logs to the strream, Beaver Creek on the South Coast, during a dry period. When the water rises, the logs will provide places for salmon to hide, rest, feed and rear.

However, Knapp said he expected the Aug. 3, 1998, announcement from the National Marine Fisheries Service that it would list coastal coho as a threatened species, triggering the protections of the Endangered Species Act.

Knapp said he will continue with his restoration efforts despite the listing announcement. But he said it may discourage others who may not be willing to undertake both voluntary and federally required projects and changes.

"We had people in this area who were warming up (to the idea of salmon restoration) and are now drawing their heads in a bit," Knapp said.

Other landowners say they don't agree with the effectiveness of some of the provisions of the restoration plan.

Ron Puhl lives near Port Orford on the Elk River, still a prime stream for coho and chinook salmon. He produces livestock, timber and cranberries on his land. He thinks that human interaction with nature can have a powerful healing effect.

"I have a hard time believing in completely inactive restoration," said Puhl. "We have stream bank areas that are completely unstable...I'm not willing to just stand by and let nature take more of my land when we can stabilize it. We do things like adding whole trees and root wads to streams to provide places for juvenile salmon to hide from predators. Without coming here and seeing, it's hard to understand what we accomplish."

The Oregon Natural Resources Council, which led the court challenge to the Oregon Plan to gain the coho listing, thinks that voluntary efforts are great, but they don't do enough to stop future watershed damage.

"The whole focus is on taking places that are already damaged and trying to repair them," said Diane Valantine of the ONRC. "That is good. But we need to stop new and additional damage, too, and voluntary efforts don't accomplish that."

Ideally, she said, both the Oregon Plan and the federal requirements will work together to accomplish what neither could do alone.

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