Upper Pine Hollow Culverts

This project is located along Pine Hollow Creek, a steelhead bearing tributary to Rock Creek, which flows directly to the John Day River. The project is located within Wheeler County, approximately 17 miles east of Mitchell, Oregon. There were two small culverts on the upper reaches of Pine Hollow that were undersized and did not meet fish passage criteria. Pine Hollow being a listed steelhead stream; it was imperative to provide full access to the available upstream habitat for spawning and rearing.This project replaced two undersized culverts on the upper portion of Pine Hollow with appropriately sized plate arch culverts. The new culverts are large enough to provide fish passage during low and high flows. The project also planted native riparian species and installed exclusion fencing. Riparian Juniper removal was mis-reported as proposed and is now reported at complete under forestry practices/stand management. This project had a modification of the area that was enrolled in CREP, which necessitated a funding increase. Project partners include USFWS Partners Program, Antone Ranch (Alscott Antone Ranch LLC), ODFW, and Wheeler SWCD.

The John Day Subbasin Plan and OWEB Basin Priorities both ranked fish passage in the Rock Creek drainage as High Impact with a High confidence rating.