Riparian Enhancement on Deadwood Creek Legacy Farms and Upper Indian Creek

These projects are located in the Siuslaw Watershed and will take place in the sub-watersheds of Deadwood Creek and Upper Indian Creek. Over the last 100 years, these reaches were subjected to splash damming, intensive agriculture, and native species removal, reducing the availability of spawning gravels, increasing stream solar exposure, and reducing riparian plant diversity. To restore these riparian habitats, we will replace dense patches of invasive species with a diverse assortment of native riparian conifers, hardwood trees, and shrubs and maintain those seedlings until they are Free-to-Grow. These projects are identified as priority projects in the Siuslaw Coho Partnership (SCP)’s Strategic Action Plan (SAP) for Coho Salmon Recovery. SCP partners include the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua & Siuslaw Indians, Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Siuslaw Soil and Water Conservation District, Bureau of Land Management, Siuslaw National Forest, and Wild Salmon Center.

Deadwood Creek and Upper Indian Creek have been identified by the core planning team and in the model as high priority for riparian enhancement. The primary objective of this project is to restore riparian habitat degraded by past agricultural practices and enhancing self-sustaining native riparian forests along these water channels. These areas have considerable intrinsic potential to address the key limiting factors affecting salmonid production in the watershed. This segment of channels serves as migration corridors and provides critical summer and winter rearing habitat for Coho and Chinook salmon, steelhead, and other native aquatic organisms. The tributary channels function as migration corridors to spawning habitat, and they provide summer habitat for out-migrating progeny, and off-channel winter rearing habitat for Coho and other species.