Lower Fry Creek Meadow

The Lower Fry Creek Meadow project treated 0.85 mile of habitat restoration on the East Fork Potlatch River, Idaho, on private land. Wild steelhead within the Lower Clearwater population spawn and rear in this reach of river and will directly benefit from the improved habitat conditions for juvenile steelhead.



Project elements completed to address instream flow and habitat as well as riparian habitat, while restoring natural river processes and function included: 1) installation of channel spanning wood jams and large trees for immediate habitat complexity to provide sheltered pools, complexity, sediment sorting, and improved floodplain inundation, 2) constructed riffles to raise water surface elevation and reconnect two relic channels to inundate the floodplain to provide off-channel lateral habitat, 3) installation of logs for streambank stabilization, 4) adding spawning gravel, and 5) cattle-exclusion fencing, water gaps, and replanting of disturbed areas with native vegetation to stabilize banks and reduce fine sediment inputs, prevent the spread of noxious weeds, and provide long term wood recruitment and shade.

The NOAA recovery plan for Snake River Basin steelhead (NMFS 2017) identified impaired fish passage, reduced stream complexity and channel structure, excess fine sediment, elevated summer water temperatures, diminished streamflow during critical periods, reduced floodplain connectivity and function, and degraded riparian conditions as the primary steelhead liming factors in this watershed. The Lower Fry Creek Meadow project will directly address these limiting factors using locally sourced trees to increase habitat complexity, create pools, provide cover, staging areas for adults, recruitment and retention of spawning gravels, add lateral habitat, and create overwintering and summer rearing habitat for ESA-listed steelhead on 1.2 mile of the East Fork Potlatch River, a Tier 1 sub watershed in the Potlatch River basin. Trees will be positioned within the channel as debris, log jams, and channel spanners in locations designed to maximize their benefit for increasing juvenile rearing and overwintering habitat, backwatering floodplains and increasing lateral habitat, improving spawning conditions through sediment aggradation and sorting, and stabilizing banks in some areas. Previous habitat restoration work in this area focused on restoring a historic meander while moving the previous altered alignment away from the road and did not extend to the downstream property boundary. The proposed project will increase habitat connectivity and provide a cumulative benefit to steelhead along with two other recently implemented large wood habitat projects downstream; in combination with the recently completed Dammerman project (PCSRF 007 17 CW) and the instream portion of the Stowers project (PCSRF 015 18 CW), approximately three miles of contiguous large wood habitat will be provided for ESA-listed steelhead. As spawning and rearing conditions improve, the number of juvenile steelhead surviving in the East Fork Potlatch River to pre-smolt and smolt stages is expected to exhibit a detectable response and a potential increase in juvenile emigrant production between 10 – 43% (Uthe et al. 2017). The East Fork Potlatch River is monitored and evaluated annually by the Potlatch River Steelhead Monitoring and Evaluation (PRSME) project and this project will be intensively monitored to document how steelhead respond to restoration actions and inform adaptive management decision-making.