Road Creek 2 Passage Barrier Culvert to Bridge

The Road Creek 2 Passage Barrier Culvert to Bridge project, sponsored by the Custer Soil and Water Conservation District, is a collaborative effort with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Custer Soil and Water Conservation and the Bureau of Reclamation. The East Fork of the Salmon River is a key spawning area for Salmon and Steelhead. Road Creek is a small tributary to the East Fork. The project will remove an existing barrier and install a new structure in the historic channel of Road Creek to provide access to 1.19 miles of stream for all life stages of fish. The current culvert is undersized and a fish barrier at low flows. The project is immediately downstream from a bridge installed in 2022 under PCSRF project 020 19 SA. With the newly unincumbered flow from the upstream culvert replacement, high flows now target this small culvert leaving it at risk of washing out and dumping large amounts of sediment in the East Fork of the Salmon River near key spawning areas.

The goal of this project is to re-establish fish passage for Chinook salmon and Steelhead trout in Road Creek, a tributary to the East Fork, and to reduce sediment inputs into the spawning areas in lower Road Creek and the East Fork. The objective is to provide access to 1.19 miles of spawning habitat for adult salmonids and rearing habitat for juvenile salmonids. Spawning has been observed in this lower reach of Road Creek above the confluence of the East Fork.