Page 4 Forest & River News a Fall/Winter 2013

by Marisa Formosa,Education Coordinator, Sanctuary Forest

In the autumn of 2012, a group of nonprofits and government agencies set to work on a small section of entrenched streambed in the remote hills of Northern California. The goal: to restore stream health and habitat for the endangered coho salmon. Th e plan: to install a series of log weirs and debris jams to reconnect the stream with its fl oodplain. Th e stream, know locally as Baker Creek, is a tributary of the Mattole River—a cold, salmon-bearing river that f lows north 62 miles from misty headwaters in Whale Gulch to foggy estuary in Petrolia. Steelhead, chinook and coho salmon spawn in the Mattole watershed, many of them making the long journey to the headwaters, where the water remains cold year-round and dense forest grows right up to the river banks. Baker Creek, like much of the watershed, suff ers from negative eff ects of past land-use practices (such as soil erosion and removal of streambed tree canopy), compounded with a more recent pattern of summer droughts. The degradation of salmon habitat in the Mattole has left the native coho salmon hovering on the brink of extinction. “Fish are a product of the landscape,” explains BLM Geologist and project lead Sam Flanagan. “Survival depends not only on what we do in the stream but what we do in the watershed.”

Baker Creek was heavily impacted by logging, and at least three parts of it were straightened to accommodate logging roads (where today the worst stream entrenchment is found) and the mill that was established near its banks. Human water use was never a big factor for Baker, though several logging families most likely drew water from it during the peak

of the logging boom. Today the logging industry in the Mattole watershed has declined significantly. The extremely lucrative old-growth forests have been decimated, leaving only small, secluded patches, and irreversibly changing the way the watershed functions. Th e duff layer, or

“sponge,” was eroded by logging, and the diverse forest replaced by an even-aged forest of thirsty, adolescent trees.

In the 1980s and 1990s, well-intentioned fisheries agencies and restoration groups decided to remove the log jams from the Mattole and its tributaries, thinking that the logs were blocking fish passage. The removal of most of the wood in the watershed was catastrophic for natural river functions. Without the accumulation of wood (a result of natural windfall from the forest), the water f low was no longer

slowed down. Baker, once a haven for coho, no longer had winter habitat for juveniles. Gone were the side-channels and ponds with slow-moving water. The streambed was scoured down to bedrock, leaving shallow, susceptible pools. On a recent Sanctuary Forest radio show, Flanagan likened Baker Creek to “walking through a hallway…[there just wasn’t] much going on as far as habitat and pools.”

Beginning in 2000, the communit y saw another problem threatening the ecosystem they depended on: climate change. And because of past impacts, the watershed had little resilience to a new pattern of increasingly prolonged dry seasons. In 2002 the Mattole watershed experienced an unusually long and hot summer. For many residents, it was the first time they had seen the river stop

Groundwater Recharge and Coho Habitat Recovery in Baker Creek, Mattole Watershed

InspIrIng projects

Galen Doherty, MSG, and Sam Flanagan, BLM, sealing the fi rst log step pool structures. p hoto by: tash a McKee

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f lowing, or witnessed entire tributaries drying up and thousands of salmonids stranded. The community realized that climate change could spell disaster for an already damaged watershed.

Baker Creek, which historically was one of the better coho-bearing creeks, began to dry up each summer, leaving disconnected pools and long stretches of dry creek bed. The beautiful bedrock waterfalls and cascades were silent, and Sanctuary Forest streamflow monitors crunched dry leaves underfoot as they walked upstream, looking for flow. By the time the rain came it was clear: if people were going to live in harmony with nature in the shadow of past mistakes and with the quickly changing climate on the horizon, a lot of learning and a lot of work had to be done to restore the local watershed.

In 2005 Brad Job, an engineer-hydrologist for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), came to the Mattole to work with and teach Sanctuary Forest about groundwater hydrology in the watershed. Brad explained the relationship between water bodies (ponds and creeks) and g rou ndwater: the elevat ion of the groundwater is equal to that of the water body. When a stream becomes entrenched, the water level in the ground drops along with the lowered streambed, resulting in significantly less groundwater. Brad and Tasha McKee, the latter now Executive Director of Sanctuary Forest, began working together to develop strategies to restore groundwater and summer f lows. That same year, Chris Maser, a scientist and author who writes about social-environmental sustainability, came to visit the Mattole headwaters and participate in a conference about water scarcity in the watershed. It was during this visit that he gave Tasha some very important advice: learn from nature—specifically beaver dams—and then design structures that mimic their natural functions.

In 2009, Tasha found an ecosystems scientist named Michael Pollock, who

had twenty years of experience working with beaver dams and could help with designs that imitate nature. Later that year, a collaborative team was defined. Sanctuary Forest, with Tasha at the helm, coordinated all elements of the project and helped secure funding. BLM hosted the project on their land, was lead on project design and contributed most of the funding, as well as expertise from their geology, engineer-hydrology and fisheries biology staff (Flanagan, Job, and AJ Donnell.) Mattole Salmon Group, with Campbell Thompson as implementation supervisor and operator, contributed implementation and design expertise from many years of Mattole watershed restoration. Michael Pollock of NOAA Fisheries and Conor Shea of U.S. Fish & Wildlife were key members of the team,

contributing to design, engineering, and development of a scientific framework to evaluate the project.

Seven years af ter Chris v isited the Mattole, the Baker Creek Project was implemented. Michael Pollock explained that the overall strategy was to “mimic what would happen in nature over long periods of time. [In nature] there would be wood falling in, storing gravel, slowing the f low and causing groundwater recharge.” The project had three main goals: (1) to create more winter habitat by raising the streambed to connect flows with the f loodplain and off-channel habitat, (2) to create more instream pool habitat by promoting gravel and wood accumulation to create pools, and (3) to increase late-summer stream f low by raising groundwater levels.

InspIrIng projects

Tasha McKee, Sanctuary Forest, assisting with

sealing the log structures.p hoto by: Ga len Doh ert y

Page 6 Forest & River News a Fall/Winter 2013

Installation unfolded in two phases. The first phase included the installation of three channel-spanning log structures in the fall of 2012. The logs formed three step pools, and even before the first rains came, the water table had risen three-tenths of a foot. With the rain the pools filled to overf lowing and a historic side channel was connected. The structures sealed and water f lowed over the logs, causing sediment to accumulate upstream and scour pools to form downstream. In total, stream elevation increased by 1.5 feet, in places causing the creek to reconnect with its floodplain. The project appeared to be a tremendous success. The narrow, entrenched section of stream where the structures were implemented was now a complex system of pools, wood, and off-channel habitat.

The real test came in the winter, however, when spawning salmon made the perilous jou rney to the headwaters. Wou ld the coho return to Baker? Before the experimental project, it had been five years since any juveniles had been seen in

Baker, and ten years without any spawning adults. To the great joy and excitement of the team, the coho were loud and clear in their approval of the project. In the winter of 2012 two coho redds (egg deposits) were found just upstream and downstream of

the project area. In the summer of 2013, 1,300 juvenile coho were counted in Baker, out of 2,500 total in the Mattole watershed. The fish were speaking with their presence.

From the beginning, an important part of the Baker Creek Project was to learn from the past and develop a scientific model. Baker was a pilot project designed to test a well-planned and studied hypothesis. During both phases, the team was careful not to move too fast, to do extensive monitoring, to collect as much data as possible, and to evaluate the results. Because phase one was so successful, phase two pushed the idea of a “dynamic watershed” even further. Implemented in 2013, it includes nine additional channel-spanning structures, more wood debris, connection with a historic pond, and log posts and “fences” installed downstream to further slow down and back up flows.

In late summer 2013, as flows throughout the watershed diminished and neared crisis levels, pools began to disconnect. But unlike in the past, the pools in the 800-ft. project reach remained big and deep, with ample habitat and cover for the juvenile salmon. The habitat was persistent and, as hoped, provided resilience against drought.

View of formerly entrenched stream reach, now reconnected to floodplain with abundant pool habitat upstream of structures. p hoto by: tash a McKee

Members of collaborative team evaluating log step pools during high flows, December 2012. p hoto by: tash a McKee

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A lt houg h spaw n i ng coho a nd t he subsequent juveniles have yet to inspect and vote on the new structures, they are a lready out-performing habitat ex p e c t at ion s . A f ter t wo r a i n s i n September that dumped over five inches on the Mattole watershed, the project area on Baker Creek is abundant with pool habitat and stream complexity. A lazy flow meanders through marsh-like wetlands, deep pools, and loose accumulations of wood. Thompson, after an October visit to the project, noted, “It’s looking great after the rain. Everything is flowing as planned, designed, and constructed. Even the fence structures, where we were unsure what they would do…they are going to be beautiful.” Jim Kenna, the BLM director for California, expressed his enthusiasm and support on a recent tour of the project,

calling it a model for the entire U.S., and asking for leadership and agency education to bring the strategy into the mainstream of restoration work. River f lows and coho counts in the Mattole watershed this summer were still very low, but the tremendous improvement on Baker Creek means that additional groundwater recharge and coho habitat projects can be pursued. Tasha hypothesizes that “ten similar projects could be enough to totally restore the coho salmon in the Mattole.”

Historically, the Mattole watershed was very dynamic, with a wide variety and abundance of habitat types. Much of that diversity has been lost, and the watershed suffers from uniformity. The Baker Creek Project took a big step toward restoring both watershed diversity and capacity. Chris Maser, after hearing of the pilot

project’s success, wrote, “It is wonderful to hear, once again, how helpful Nature is when we listen to and learn from Her. I am glad you did, and that She honored your trust.”

Contributing funders to this project were: BLM, Firedoll Foundation, Bella Vista Foundation, Weeden Foundation, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Booneville Foundation, NOAA Fisheries, Kenny Brothers Foundation, Humboldt Area Foundation, Pacific Coast Joint Venture, Conservation Lands Foundation, and Sanctuary Forest’s individual donors, supporters, and volunteers.

a For more information: sanctuaryforest.org

View of upstream pool habitat formed by placement of channel spanning logs, October 2013. p hoto by: tash a McKee