| Siuslaw Basin Partnership |
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Location: Siuslaw River Basin, central Oregon coast Objective: The Siuslaw Basin Partnership aims to restore the Siuslaw watershed while also providing economic revitalization and community education. Participants: The Siuslaw Basin Partnership is a decentralized, vast, and somewhat loose-knit group. Partners include the Siuslaw National Forest; Siuslaw Watershed Council; Siuslaw Water and Soil Conservation District; Siuslaw Institute; The Campbell Group, which owns private forests in the basin; the Bureau of Land Management; Oregon Salmon Plan participants, including state and county agencies; Ecotrust; Cascade Pacific Resource Conservation and Development Area, Inc.; local schools; private landowners; local volunteers and more. History: Concern over the Siuslaw goes back as far as the 1980s when residents began to worry about dwindling salmon populations. "One of the biggest impetuses and supports starting out was the fact that the coho salmon was really in trouble," says Johan Hogervorst of the Siuslaw National Forest. John Rolland, the local timber manager for Champion International, shared that concern and went to the Forest Service research station in Corvallis, Ore. to ask about starting a restoration project in the Siuslaw Basin. Unfortunately, as Charlie Dewberry, a private environmental consultant, notes, "It was becoming clear by the early 80s that something was amiss, that the supposed restoration activities that were at that time being implemented on the landscape, they weren't successful. But it wasn't clear at that time what should be done." One major impediment was that scientists had not found an effective method to monitor changes in salmon populations in streams, so neither declines in returning fish nor the effectiveness of restoration efforts could be determined. At the time, researchers at the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest research lab in Corvallis, Oregon were looking for a coastal steam where they could test potential monitoring methods. They chose Knowles Creek, a tributary of the lower Siuslaw River, where they eventually developed the Hankin-Reeves method. The new method of counting fish gave people in the Siuslaw Basin a jumping off point, Dewberry says. "It's enabled us to really ask the questions where are the fish, how are they doing, and what's the trajectory over time," he says. Soon after, in 1992, formal collaboration to restore Knowles Creek coalesced among the Pacific Rivers Council, Forest Service and Champion International - whose lands are now owned by The Campbell Group. The parties chose Knowles Creek because much was known about it and it was a relatively small watershed with both federal and private landowners willing to work together The discussion focused mostly on the dynamics of sediment in the creek, the organic matter and food available for fish species, particularly salmon, and how water moves materials like logs and roots through the creek to create habitat. "Our idea was if you did all three of those things, you would probably see some improvement in the basins," Dewberry says. "Over time, I think that picture is right." Meanwhile, industrial timber and small private landowners in the upper basin were also meeting to discuss restoration. As is the case with many Northwest forests, the upper basin of the Siuslaw is a checkerboard of ownership, with private groups owning half and the Bureau of Land Management owning the other half. At first, even creating a map of the sub-basin was difficult because various agencies' computers were not compatible, according to Johnny Sundstrom of the Siuslaw Institute. "So with scissors and paste and the new word 'watershed,' we began," he says. The group targeted Deadwood Creek as a good place to start. Over time, the various groups and people interested in restoration have found each other and created strong relationships intent on restoring the watershed and its fish runs. They hope to revitalize the fishing economy, provide sustainable timber harvests and draw the community into the effort, most significantly by having school groups help with monitoring. The group has expanded and taken on projects in Karnowsky and Bailey creeks as well. In the process, it has discovered that various partners have different strengths and authorities that, when melded together, can achieve restoration more quickly and effectively. Most often, the partners work in small groups to restore certain areas. But participants also meet in a larger group setting as part of the Siuslaw Watershed Council's technical team to set priorities and touch base about the progress of different projects. The most obvious example of collaboration is the effort under way by the Soil and Water Conservation District, Siuslaw Watershed Council and the Forest Service on Karnowsky Creek in the lower basin. These three groups have found that the Forest Service has a lot of technical expertise and can also provide limited federal funding; the council can apply for private grants; and the district has access to funding from the state as well as federal farm programs. Over time, the Karnowsky Creek project brought in other partners, such as Ecotrust, which provided funding from an EPA water quality grant, and local schools, which help with monitoring. The Karnowsky project has become a large-scale restoration effort with a budget of nearly $1 million from a wide variety of sources, according to Eric Nusbaum with the district. "You can use the strengths of everyone and what they do to get the work done," Nusbaum says. Accomplishments: The most striking and specific accomplishment of the Siuslaw Basin Partnership is a national river restoration prize awarded to the group last year in Australia called the Thiess International River Prize, the first to be awarded to the United States. The award came with $100,000 in Australian dollars. "The symbol of our cooperation is basically the river prize we won last year. That kind of shows how what we've done has value," Sundstrom says. "We've gotten a tremendous amount of actual, on-the-ground restoration done and we've been able to keep our organizations intact," he adds. Hogervorst of the Forest Service says the most recent accomplishments have been on Karnowsky Creek, where the Forest Service has purchased 100 acres of the valley from a local landowner to improve coho salmon habitat. In the last century, settlers filled the natural channel and diverted it to a ditch, a common practice throughout the Oregon coast. In 2002, the group relocated the stream to the middle of the valley, restoring its meandering channel, wetlands and floodplain function, and reintroducing large woody debris for salmon habitat. The group has worked on Karnowsky for three summers and has two more to go, according to Hogervorst. In the end, the project will have restored more than three miles of stream channel and over 80 acres of surrounding land. Participants also note that stewardship contracting has been a significant achievement in the Siuslaw National Forest. The Siuslaw was a pilot project site for the Forest Service's stewardship contracting program. The program allows managers to sell timber from overstocked stands that need thinning for restoration purposes and use the receipts for other restoration efforts in the same forest. "The Siuslaw is known as the litigation-free, profit-making forest, and some of those profits are under the stewardship contracts," Sundstrom says. Restoration has occurred, not only on public land, but many private properties as well, according to Sundstrom. Deadwood Creek restoration includes riparian areas owned by 18 different private individuals or entities. Other accomplishments include a Native Plant Giveaway for people who own riparian land, funding of culvert replacements for streams running beneath roads, road decommissioning, and noxious weed removal. Fish runs in the Siuslaw are up, but that's due mostly to good ocean conditions. True restoration will take up to a century, Dewberry says. "It took us 100 years to get into this mess. If we think we're gonna get out of it in less than 100 years, we're only fooling ourselves," he says. "It's going to take generations. At least there's a core group of people in this basin that have committed to this." And then there's the general joy people find in their work in the Siuslaw Basin. "It's fun. I love my job," Hogervorst says. Sundstrom notes that Forest Service employees in the Siuslaw often will pass up promotions because they would have to relocate. "They like to be here. That's an advantage," Sundstrom says. Challenges/constraints: One might think involvement from private timber owners would be a challenge, but since the beginning, the largest private timber company has been actively involved in restoring the Siuslaw Basin. Paul Chapman of The Campbell Group says restoration efforts do sometimes limit their business, since logging often focuses on smaller-diameter trees or projects are relocated to areas with less valuable timber. But having the support of the community is critical to operating their business, he says. Chapman says the company wants to be "good neighbors with the rest of the community, and good stewards of the land. And to a certain extent, doing that gives you the public de facto, gives you a license to operate your business." One of the major challenges partners note is the time and energy it takes to attract partners, build trust and maintain relationships. "Even when you're not working together, you better stay in contact or else something will come up and put a wrench in the whole thing," Sundstrom says. Nusbaum says his biggest frustration is the hesitancy of state and federal bureaucracies to bless the Siuslaw partnership's cutting-edge, innovative programs with the necessary permits. And, of course, funding is always a challenge. For more information see: Siuslaw Watershed Council Forest Service-Siuslaw Stewardship Projects Pacific Coast Watershed Partnership-Siuslaw Summary
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 19 March 2008 ) | |||
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