Bedrock – Lapwai Design

The Nez Perce Soil and Water Conservation District will complete designs for three sites within the Clearwater Subbasin (one site on Bedrock Creek and two sites on Lapwai Creek). Site 1 includes a design for habitat treatments on a 0.54 mile segment of Bedrock Creek located 0.34 miles upstream from the confluence of Bedrock Creek and the Clearwater River. Site 2 includes a design for in-stream habitat treatments for 0.75 miles and Site 3 is a design for 2 miles of road erosion control. Sites 2 and 3 are located on Sweetwater Creek, a tributary to Lapwai Creek within the Clearwater Subbasin. Current habitat conditions include lack of woody material, lack of riparian vegetation, a partially disengaged floodplain, elevated water temperatures, and lack of juvenile steelhead refugia.



Project actions include: 1) final design for habitat treatments on a 0.54 mile segment of Bedrock Creek, 2) final design for instream habitat treatments on 0.75 miles of Sweetwater Creek, and 3) final design for 2 miles of road erosion control on Sweetwater Creek.

Improving the project sites through development of a restored floodplain will increase the stream’s processes and function (Site 1). Developing habitat complexity in the form of woody debris structures and planting of riparian zones will improve survival of juveniles in summer rearing months and overwintering as well (Sites 1, 2). An established riparian zone will provide long-term sources of woody debris, food sources for macro-invertebrates and provide shade to the stream to lower stream temperatures and improve summer juvenile steelhead survival (Sites 1,2). The designs for all sites addresses the juvenile steelhead summer and overwintering life stages through the development of instream habitat and floodplain diversity and sediment reductions.