ODFW Grant over $178,000 for Chesnimnus Creek restoration in Wallowa County
By Shannon Weidemann (McKone) on Monday, May 6th, 2024 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
WALLOWA COUNTY – (Information from ODFW) As part of its Private Forest Accord (PFA) Grant Program, ODFW has issued $178,146 to the Nez Perce Tribe as part of a project to restore a portion of Chesnimnus Creek’s fish habitat in northeast Wallowa County. This is part of a larger statewide habitat restoration funding effort, the first of its kind for the PFA, providing over ten million dollars to 25 projects across Oregon. The full description of the project, as listed by the ODFW and the PFA, is as follows:
“Cool Springs & Dawson Restoration Design
Wallowa County
Project Goal:
This project will produce engineered designs and permits to restore 4 miles of Chesnimnus Creek. The resulting work will aid in mitigating habitat limiting factors for multiple life stages of ESA listed Snake River summer steelhead, native rainbow/redband trout, and Pacific lamprey both instream and off-channel through the addition of large wood and BDAs, removal of levees, side channel and wetland creation, floodplain connection/inundation, and improve native plant communities.
Habitat Conservation Plan Covered Species: Native salmon and trout (Oncorhynchus spp.)
Funding Awarded: $178,146
Grantee Name: Nez Perce Tribe
Project Abstract:
The Cool Springs & Dawson Restoration Design Project is part of a multi-phased, multi-property, and multi-agency effort spanning approximately 14 miles of Chesnimnus Creek on both private and federal lands. This application proposes to complete designs, permitting, and all necessary documents to implement a thoroughly vetted instream and floodplain restoration project benefitting limiting life stages of ESA listed steelhead on two parcels of private land between RM 0.6 and 4.5 in Chesnimnus Creek. Chesnimnus Creek is a tributary of Joseph Creek, located in the northern end of Wallowa.
Although the Joseph Creek steelhead population is among the most viable in the region, its headwaters do not originate in high elevation snowpack dominated mountains, which makes this watershed extremely vulnerable to changes in temperature and hydrologic regimes. With legacy logging effects, roads, agricultural practices, removal of beaver and large wood from stream channels, and other anthropogenic influences within the Joseph Creek watershed, current habitat conditions in Chesnimnus Creek are significantly deviated from its historic ecosystem function.
This process and function departure has negatively impacted many physical and biological aspects of the watershed, resulting in various life stage impairments to ESA listed Snake River summer steelhead and native rainbow/redband trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), and Pacific lamprey, of which this project aims to improve through a suite of priority restoration actions. The Chesnimnus watershed also hosts many species of concern as per the Oregon HCP including multiple species of woodpecker, owl, bats, amphibians, and plants. In addition to the Nez Perce Tribe, the Grande Ronde Model Watershed (GRMW), the landowners, project funders, the United States Forest Service (USFS), Trout Unlimited (TU), the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife (ODFW), and other Atlas Implementation Team partners will be instrumental in the successful completion of this extensive landscape scale restoration effort.
