Lower Grass Valley Canyon Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration

The project is located on Grass Valley Canyon (GVC) Creek approximately 5 miles from the mouth. GVC Creek is a tributary to the John Day River and the John Day River drains into the Columbia River. It is approximately 14 miles East of Wasco in Sherman County. Due to historic intensive land-use coupled with impacts from large episodic floods it prevented the recovery of aquatic habitat quantity and quality throughout much of the mainstem of Grass Valley Canyon Creek. The lower 7 miles of Grass Valley Canyon Creek suffers from a lack of perennial surface flow, reduced channel geomorphic complexity, and a lack of riparian and wetland vegetation. This project will explore the efficacy of using structural treatments to expedite the recovery and expansion of aquatic and wetland habitat in Grass Valley Canyon Creek through installation beaver dam analog structures. This ‘pilot’ level project will work to increase pool habitat, create needed in-channel complexity, expand existing channel habitat, and create wetland habitat capable of supporting wetland and riparian vegetation. The reach is currently protected by a riparian fence and is enrolled in CREP. Project partners include NRCS, FSA, BLM, ODFW, and Sherman County Area Watershed Council.

This work will facilitate floodplain expansion that will enhance riparian community (improves, shading, provides cover, increases allochthonous nutrient input, etc.) and channel complexity. Incision recovery will improve stream health and restore ecological function to the stream. Increased physical complexity within the channel will be utilized by juvenile steelhead for habitat requirements, such as zones for feeding, energy conservation, and refuge from predators, and improve spawning conditions for adult steelhead. Increased wetted extent of channel during low flow conditions will increase the quantity of habitat available to juvenile steelhead during summer low flow as much of the stream flows intermittent.