Lower Woodard Creek Final Design

The Estuary Partnership request $162,859 to develop final restoration designs and permits on USFS land approximately 1/4 mile upstream of the SR- 14 bridge near Beacon Rock State Park. The Estuary Partnership will partner with the USFS Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area to develop the restoration project. The overall goal of the project is to reconnect more than 1/2 mile of the historic floodplain and remove legacy berms and roads, which have substantially altered physical and biological conditions. The project will focus on restoring a 1/2 mile section of Woodard Creek that is disconnected from the floodplain using a valley bottom reconnection approach. This project will recreate important spawning and rearing habitat for fall Chinook, coho, steelhead and lamprey. The project will build on existing design efforts and the recently completed Upper Woodard Creek restoration project (RCO #18-1394).

The overarching goal of the project is to restore Lower Woodard Creek valley bottom processes and functions in the project reach valley bottom. Goal 1: Restore geomorphic, chemical, and biological processes that maintain a healthy, complex, and resilient floodplain ecosystem. Increased geomorphic complexity will result in heterogenous sediment deposition patches and depositional environment. Goal 2: Restore a hydrologically connected, well-functioning, complex channel network and floodplain with increased hyporheic exchange with the floodplain water table. Goal 3: Increase habitat availability, diversity, and quality for ESA-Threatened Winter Steelhead, Coho salmon and Fall Chinook and other native aquatic and riparian species (e.g., Pacific Lamprey and American beaver). Goal 4: Restore native plant communities and riparian function across the floodplain valley bottom.