Lower Spring Creek Fish Passage

An earthen dam blocks passage to spring-dominated, consistently flowing habitat in Spring Creek. Spring Creek provides habitat for Mid-Columbia Steelhead, Mid-Columbia Spring Chinook, and Lower Columbia Coho. PCSRF funding will assist with the implementation/construction phase of the project at the Lower Spring Creek Dam. A recently completed Salmon Recovery Funding Board grant funded engineering design work for the project, including topographic survey, geology, hydrology, geomorphology, land use history, and fish use, an alternatives analysis. Designs are ready to be permitted.

Providing fish passage at this dam will open ~1.25 of anadromous habitat and up to 3.0 miles of habitat for resident rainbow and coastal cutthroat trout. This project will address the most significant remaining fish passage barrier in the lower White Salmon River Basin based on a fish passage inventory completed in 2011 (Underwood Conservation District, UCD).

Spring Creek flows into the White Salmon River 6.75 miles upstream from its confluence with the Columbia River. The Lower Spring Creek Dam presents a 100% barrier to fish passage 0.66 miles upstream form the confluence with the White Salmon River. Spring Creek is one of the four primary tributaries in the watershed used by anadromous fish. It is a perennial spring-fed tributary that provides year-round cool clean high-quality fish habitat. The relatively stable spring-fed hydrology provides refuge during winter and spring high-flow conditions and consistently cool tributary refuge in the summer. The area around the Spring Creek confluence with the White Salmon River represents some of the highest quality habitat in the basin. This area is uniquely undeveloped and characterized by dense forest, with topography and tree canopies that shade the mainstem. This reach also has the most suitable substrate types for mainstem-spawning chinook.

Worksite #1 Proposed Work:
The Spring Creek Dam is located on private property in Husum, WA. We propose to implement the recently completed design, which includes the removal of the existing dam and restoration of the dam site to support anadromous fisheries. The project will include finalizing the design, obtaining permits, hiring a construction firm, and implementing the project. We expect to complete the design, permitting, and contracting work in 2022-2023 and implement the project in 2024-2025.

This project will address PCSRF priority one – “factors limiting the productivity of Pacific anadromous salmonid populations.” Providing fish passage and allowing fish to access this blocked habitat will provide approximately 1.25 miles of spawning and rearing habitat for anadromous species and approximately 3.0 miles for resident fish species. Reconnection will increase habitat diversity and complexity within the Lower White Salmon River Basin. Spring Creek presents a uniquely valuable habitat type that is not present elsewhere in the basin (a spring-fed system). Even under a drought declaration in 2015, this tributary was measured to be fully wetted with no locations of intermittency (DNR stream type form). Habitat made accessible post-project will be the measurable outcome and benefit.