Upper Washougal River- Chaffee Property

The Lower Columbia RFEG installed large wood structures to improve spawning and rearing habitat for ESA listed summer steelhead in the upper Washougal River in Skamania County, WA. The project occurs in 715 of lower Silver Creek and 3,200 of the mainstem Washougal on property owned by the Zeigler family (purchased from Chaffee family in 2016). For this project we installed 61 large wood structures, treating 3907 and created a 570 side channel. Construction began in 2015 and summer steelhead have been documented spawning in both Silver Creek and the Washougal River project reaches in 2016 and 2017. Anecdotal observations of juvenile fish presence in the project reach shows a drastic increase in fish use (age-0, age-1+, age 2+) of the project site following the 2016 construction season.

The Lower Columbia RFEG installed large wood structures that improved spawning and rearing habitat for ESA listed summer steelhead in the upper Washougal River in Skamania County, WA. The restoration project installed 154 pieces of large woody debris, created a 570 foot side channel, and will continue to aggrade sediments that were scoured away by previous land use practices.