Published 3:34 pm Wednesday, May 15, 2024
By next summer, the Luckiamute Watershed Council must be ready to deposit 430 logs along 1.7 miles of a fish-bearing stream in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
“We are trying to replicate natural processes that used to happen in creeks and rivers,” said Aubrey Cloud, the council’s project manager.
However, federal grant dollars for the project won’t be disbursed early enough for the nonprofit to finish the preliminaries needed for on-the-ground work to start on time.
The problem was recently solved with $100,000 from Oregon’s new Private Forest Accord grant program, which will allow the council to begin acquiring the necessary materials and permits right away.
“This is kind of a prep phase, to make sure we have all our ducks in a row,” Cloud said. “It’s really helpful to get all this done.”
The council’s proposal was one of 25 projects to receive a total of $10 million in the first round of PFA grant funding, which is overseen by the state’s Fish and Wildlife Department and aims to improve watershed biodiversity.
In 2022, a legislative package implemented the Private Forest Accord, which imposes new requirements for stream buffers, forest roads and steep slope logging under a deal struck between the timber industry and environmental advocates.
The PFA grant program is one component of that agreement, which also means to develop a “habitat conservation plan” to protect threatened and endangered species on private forestlands, said Chad Washington, resource planning analyst at the GreenWood Resources timber company.
“These grants focus on uplift and benefit to those species,” said Washington, chair of the grant program’s advisory committee.
Stream buffers and other changes to logging practices will provide the primary boost for species, but the grants offer further habitat enhancement and aren’t limited to timber harvest areas, he said.
“You can think of this as an extra benefit on top of that,” Washington said. “It allows the conservation efforts to extend beyond the borders of the forest.”
Since the program was created two years ago, lawmakers have allocated about $20 million for the grant fund while timber harvest tax revenues have contributed $3.4 million, said Andy Spyrka, PFA grant coordinator with ODFW.
“While the program launched with initial administrative groundwork and a grant solicitation, its long-term viability hinges on securing consistent funding,” Spyrka said.
The conservation projects won’t have a direct business impact on the timber industry, but they do reinforce the spirit of cooperation that led to successful negotiations with environmental advocates, Washington said.
“Healthy salmon and trout benefit everybody,” he said. “We get to show we value the same things these conservation groups value.”
The Luckiamute Watershed Council has long enjoyed productive relations with the industrial and small forestland owners on whose property the nonprofit implements its projects, said Cloud, its project manager.
With the $100,000 PFA grant, the council will buy non-merchantable salvage logs and arrange for their transport while obtaining federal permits to work in the waterway, he said. “We want to make sure we have everything ready to go in time.”
Under the main portion of the North Fork Pedee Creek Enhancement Project, the council will place logs in the stream channel next summer, allowing for the gradual buildup of sediment, Cloud said. The gravel will serve as spawning habitat for coho salmon, winter steelhead, cutthroat trout and lamprey.
Water flowing through the gravel also lowers its temperature, further improving aquatic habitat, while the logs help widen the stream channel, he said. Spreading water into the floodplain protects against riparian drought and creates “refugia” in which juvenile fish can hide from larger predators.
“We’re trying to jumpstart those natural regeneration processes,” Cloud said.
Salmonid species are the “apex predators” within the stream and regulate the populations of other fish, which benefit from the same type of habitat, he said. “If we help them, we end up helping all the species.”
