Design for Poison and Kinnikinic Creek Aquatic Organism Passage Improvement Projects

In the Salmon River basin, the Poison Creek and Kinnikinic Creek culvert to bridge projects will provide fish passage for ESA-listed Chinook salmon, steelhead, and bull trout. Both tributaries are currently disconnected from the Salmon River and reconnection will provide spawning and rearing habitat. This project will complete designs to replace culverts on Poison and Kinnikinic Creeks, tributaries to the Upper Salmon River, with bridges to provide fish passage for migratory fishes. This phase will cover developing the design to final, survey work, working with ITD and NOAA to meet criteria, and construction oversite. This project will cover all remaining aspects needed to implement the project. This design phase follows PCSRF project 019 22 SC, which began initial design work.

Poison Creek currently has a perched, corrugated metal culvert, located on State Highway 93 near Elk Bend, ID, that only provides passage to fish when the main Salmon River is at extreme high flows. By replacing this culvert with a bridge, instream passage improvement will provide access to 6.7 miles of cold water rearing and spawning habitat for ESA-listed species including Chinook salmon, steelhead, bull trout, and genetic diversity for Westslope Cutthroat trout.



Kinnikinic Creek currently has a concrete box culvert with a drop that exceeds six feet in height on State Highway 75 in Clayton, ID, presenting a complete fish passage barrier. The barrier is located approximately 100 feet from the mouth of the Salmon River and completely disconnects passage for ESA-listed species Chinook salmon, steelhead, bull trout, and Westslope Cutthroat trout. By removing this barrier, 8.3 miles of Kinnikinic Creek will be accessible to these listed species for all life stages.



Both of these tributaries are designated as critical habitat for Columbia Basin Bull Trout and Snake River Chinook Salmon and steelhead.