Peter Ready and Greek Creek Culvert Replacements

Peter Ready Creek and Greek Creek are tributaries to Slate Creek, a major tributary to the Salmon River and home to ESA-listed steelhead and spring/summer Chinook. These culvert replacements will restore fish passage and improve riparian function for listed species in the Slate Creek watershed. The proposed projects will replace existing undersized culverts with larger span, open bottom structural plate culverts. Eighty-three crossings in the Slate Creek watershed were identified, inventoried, and prioritized in 2007-08, and these two culverts were prioritized for replacement. Peter Ready Creek has a 3’ round culvert, a bankfull of 9.94’, an outlet drop, and 0.71 miles of habitat upstream. Greek Creek has a 4’ circular culvert, a bankfull of 5.5’, an outlet drop, and 2.43 miles of habitat upstream. The designs call for replacement with structures designed for aquatic organism passage and include open bottom channels with continuous native substrate, rock weir grade control structures to allow rest stops through the structure, and streambanks inside of the culvert to create near-margin passage opportunities. The finished culverts will allow for passage of all stages of fish with native substrate, an at-grade channel, and step pools allowing for upstream migration to an additional 3.14 miles of habitat.

Historic management activities have affected aquatic processes within the Slate Creek drainage, resulting in the degradation of the stream/ riparian processes. One specific element compromising habitat, and thus reducing juvenile survival, includes loss of connectivity. As a watershed that has valuable habitat present and is home to ESA-listed species, the Slate Creek watershed has very high restoration potential, perhaps the highest potential within the lower Salmon subbasin (USFS 2000). Slate Creek has been identified as having the highest potential for steelhead production and a priority watershed for spring/summer Chinook while it is noted to be the only tributary stream that is used by Chinook salmon annually for spawning in the subbasin (USFS 2003).



Removing potential migration barriers in the watershed will restore connectivity and open access to quality spawning and rearing habitat. Replacing two undersized culverts will allow access to both juvenile and adult fish to tributary habitat with mature riparian vegetation and expands the current accessible habitat within ‘High’ potential habitat areas. The goal of this project is to enhance habitat connectivity and fish passage in the Slate Creek watershed to assist in the recovery of anadromous and resident fish species.