Big Cedar Creek Fish Passage

On the Falcon Ridge Road there was one undersized and failing culvert replaced. It was replaced with a 12’ half arch culvert with an open bottom to increase fish migration upstream. The culvert replacement adds an additional 1.9 miles of fish habitat to Big Cedar Creek. After the installation was completed, the landowners in the area noted anadromous fish in the pool and traveling upstream. In February 2020, after the culvert replacement, the site is stable and handling the large flows in Big Cedar Creek. Landowners stated that the previous culvert would have failed leaving them unable to leave their homes. The culvert failure would have resulted in 15,000 tons of sediment being released into the Big Cedar Creek which drains into Clear Creek, a tributary to the Middle Fork Clearwater River. The project has met expectations at this site.

Due to the Spring 2019 flooding, the Idaho County Road Department realigned priorities to accommodate the large volume of flood damages within the County. They are unable to accomplish the culvert replacement on the County road (worksite 2) at this time. A contract modification to decrease funding and change the scope of the project was completed on 12/4/2019 to accommodate this change.

Upon completion of this project, an additional 6.2 miles of spawning and rearing stream will be available to ESA-listed threatened steelhead, of the Clearwater River Lower Mainstem Population of the Salmon Major Population Group of the Snake River steelhead Distinct Population Segment.