East Fork Dairy Creek Instream Restoration Project

This instream restoration project was developed to improve aquatic and riparian habitat, fish passage, and water quality conditions along Plentywater Creek and East Fork Dairy Creek. 

58 large woody debris structures and six alcoves were installed in this project location in order to provide off-channel habitat for salmon and aggrade gravel bedload to promote water quality. 43 acres of riparian invasive weed removal and revegetation was managed by the Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District. One acre was treated for historic trash removal. One perched culvert was backwatered on Plentywater Creek to allow for unimpeded fish passage upstream. 

East Fork Dairy Creek was identified by the 2013-14 Rapid Bio-Assessment snorkel surveys as having the highest concentration of salmonids documented in the Tualatin basin, making this project area a high priority focus for aquatic and riparian restoration. 

In addition to addressing immediate improvements to the stream for water quality and fish passage, enhancing the structure of the riparian corridor habitat to provide shade and large wood recruitment was crucial to the project and will aid in restoring fish and wildlife habitat, instream complexity, and floodplain connectivity in the long term.

This project was a collaboration with the Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District and seven private landowners and was made possible by funding from an OWEB restoration grant award. Trees for the large wood structure placements were provided by Barrett Brown, one of the participating landowners, and were harvested onsite.