Rogue River Basin Habitat Restoration Program, EMI Reach: Development, Implementation & Stewardship

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In 2012, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) released a Biological Opinion (BiOp) for the Rogue River Basin that identifies increasing the weighted useable area (WUA) as a reasonable and prudent alternative to reduce the risk of jeopardy to threatened Southern Oregon and Northern California Coast (SONCC) Coho Salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch). An increase to the WUA may be met through instream placement of large woody material (LWM) structures, providing more water in the commitment reaches of Emigrant/Neil Creek, Bear Creek, Ashland Creek, Little Butte Creek, and South Fork Little Butte Creek during critical flow periods; or, through a combination of LWM and flow. Since 2014, The Freshwater Trust (The Trust) has been the lead on scoping, installing, and maintaining LWM habitat projects to meet the Rogue River BiOp obligations. They installed six LWM projects on the South Fork Little Butte, Neil Creek, and upper Bear Creek. The four LWM projects of the South Fork Little Butte will satisfy the habitat uplift WUA habitat requirements for the GILO reach. The Trust also installed the Neil Creek RM 2.0 Phase II, or “Manta” project, in 2016, and the Bear Creek RM 24.7 River-left project in 2017. Together these projects performed as designed during five- and ten-year return intervals over the 2016-17 winter. The Trust’s aquatic restoration program has successfully created crucial habitat for winter and summer rearing coho salmon and steelhead, where it has been lost or severely degraded, through the development of numerous side channels, meanders, large woody structures, and pool tailouts. The aquatic restoration program is further enhanced by their riparian restoration program, which ensures successive streamside vegetation that will contribute shade and, ultimately, wood to streams. The Trust has worked on many habitat and LWM restoration projects in Oregon, particularly streamside and aquatic restoration on the Rogue River and its tributaries as well as streamside vegetation in the Rogue River Basin. They have developed a working relationship with private landowners negotiating and securing agreements and identifying project locations for riparian restoration which allow for the implementation of the new habitat improvement projects on private lands. These agreements are crucial because they will include the right to access the project site for the purposes of project implementation, maintenance, and monitoring to support the LWM projects.

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