Little Tucannon Creek Low-Tech Process-Based Resto

Trout Unlimited will implement a low-tech process-based restoration (LTPBR) project on Little Tucannon Creek, a headwater tributary to the Tucannon River in Columbia County, WA. The project will focus on the lower mile of Little Tucannon Creek which provides important tributary spawning and rearing habitat for Endangered Species Act-listed Snake River steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss), Snake River Chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), and Columbia River Bull Trout (Salvelinus confluentus).



Within the upper Tucannon River, a legacy of landscape-scale impacts including timber harvest, grazing, channel straightening, removal of wood from the channel, and wildfires have led to a reduction of in-channel structure and complexity, reduced channel-floodplain connectivity, and reduced riparian condition and function.



Grant funds will be used for an assessment, restoration design and planning, and implementation. The overall goal of this project is to improve limiting factors and restore ecologically-based stream processes for steelhead, Chinook, and Bull Trout by constructing at least 60 LTPBR structures including post assisted log structures and beaver dam analogues to improve habitat complexity, channel-floodplain connectivity, and riparian function over one mile of Little Tucannon Creek.



The project has moved from Lower Panjab Cr to Little Tucannon Creek. The landowner, scope of work and budget remain the same. This change is approved by the Lead Entity. Documentation of the request and approval are uploaded to the PRISM.

The overall goals are to promote self-sustaining, natural stream processes that result in a healthy and resilient riverscape and to increase habitat quantity, quality, and types for steelhead, Chinook, and Bull Trout.