Nevada Creek Culvert Replacement

Nevada Creek is a tributary to Lolo Creek, which provides important spawning and rearing habitat for ESA listed Snake River Basin steelhead. The Nevada Creek Culvert Replacement Project restored fish passage and improved riparian function for listed steelhead in the Lolo watershed, opening access to 4.7 miles of cool water refugia. The existing undersized 4-foot round culvert with a freefall from the outlet creating a passage barrier was replaced with a larger span bottomless arch with natural stream simulation. The new structure is designed for aquatic organism passage and includes an open bottom channel with continuous native substrate, instream rest rocks, and streambanks inside of the culvert to create near-margin passage opportunities. The finished, replaced culvert allows for passage of all stages of fish and other aquatic organisms with continuous native substrate and an at-grade channel with step pools to lessen the gradient allowing for upstream migration.

The Nez Perce - Clearwater National Forests has submitted the Nevada Creek Barrier Replacement as one of their Show and Shine projects completed in 2020. The press release is still in draft format, but when completed will be available on USFS website and Facebook page.

The proposed culvert replacement will restore fish passage and improve riparian function for Snake River Basin Steelhead in the Nevada Creek watershed. The average bankfull upstream of the culvert in Nevada Creek is approximately 7.6 ft. The existing culvert is undersized Nevada Creek Culvert Replacement, creating high velocities during spring flows. Removing the passage barrier at the mouth of Nevada Creek would open up 4.7 miles of potential habitat with 1.7 miles having moderate to high intrinsic potential.