Elwha Revegetation Project

This project supported ongoing floodplain revegetation efforts on the Elwha River following dam removal and reservoir revegetation efforts that were completed under the Elwha Act in 2018. This project partially funded the Tribes revegetation crew to conduct exotic weed control in the entire Elwha River corridor as well as to conduct revegetation activities using native plants. The crew used integrated exotic plant control treatment methods to suppress non-native plants and encourage native plant communities. The effort targeedt lands owned by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, National Park Service as well as private property owners that cooperatee with Tribe.

This project directly benefits habitat forming processes through the control of exotic plants along with the planting of native trees and shrubs in the floodplain of the Elwha River. Native plant communities in the Elwha floodplain are critical in support habitat forming processes and are vitally important for fish and wildlife. Our goal in the Elwha floodplain corridor is to grow late successional forest habitats dominated by older, large-diameter trees. Those trees provide habitat to a number of wildlife species and are important to habitat forming processes in the Elwha River itself. The Elwha River has a anabranching morphology and is dominated by forested islands. In order to be stable, anabranching morphologies require large diameter trees to slow rates of bank erosion and as a source of high quality wood to form logjams. Those logjams in turn provide stable aggregations of wood that interact with river hydraulics to form pools with hiding cover. This habitat is favored for rearing by a number of Pacific salmon including steelhead, coho and chinook.