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Siuslaw River Watershed | Siuslaw National Forest |
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When it comes to watershed restoration, the Siuslaw National Forest is a trailblazer. During the 1990s, as the debate over public lands logging raged throughout the Pacific Northwest, the Siuslaw, situated in central Oregon's Coast Range, quietly shifted its focus to restoration. After decades when timber harvests averaged 350 million board feet, the Siuslaw began in the late 1990s to reduce its annual cut, instead adopting silvicultural practices that would enhance restoration goals. On the Forest's 630,000 acres, the emphasis had turned to dedicating 85 percent of the Forest to the development of mature forest. Thinning trees to accelerate old-growth characteristics, returning complexity to the uniform-aged stands planted after harvests, and improving habitat, all constitute elements of this restoration strategy. This restoration approach is also especially crucial for recovering the salmon populations of the four major rivers flow out of the Siuslaw National Forest into the Pacific Ocean: the Nestucca, Alsea, Siuslaw, and Umpqua. Combined with the Forest's network of streams and tributaries, the Siuslaw surprisingly manages more miles of anadromous fish streams than any other National Forest in the lower 48 states. Most importantly, however, has been the Forest's ability to cultivate invaluable partnerships throughout the watershed, gaining the support of public and private parties alike in working toward a long-term vision of restoration. These partnerships are paying off, not only in lands restored, but in awards and recognition, including the Siuslaw River Basin Partnership qualifying as one of five finalists for a prestigious international competition. » » » » » » » » » » » » Nearly 150 years ago, some of Oregon's first pioneers came to the Karnowsky Creek valley, a tributary of the Siuslaw River's estuary that lies a mere nine miles from the ocean. They established homesteads in the lush 93-acre floodplain forest, clearing timber and raising families, farms and livestock. Later inhabitants continued adapting the surroundings to their needs, transforming the meandering stream channel and its floodplain into a series of dikes and drainage ditches to accommodate agriculture. Eventually, 85 percent of the entire 1,800-acre Karnowsky land came into National Forest management, with the remaining 15 percent shared among three private timber companies. Three years ago, Forest Service watershed specialists Karen Bennett and Johan Hogervorst walked the Karnowsky valley with Pete Barrell, coordinator for the Siuslaw Watershed Council. Together, they hatched a plan for restoring Karnowsky Creek to once again serve as a productive stream for the area's native fish. The trio enlisted the assistance of a group of university students who helped draft a proposal to restore the valley's historic hydrology, improve aquatic resources and bring back native plant communities. With the students' plan in hand, the Forest, Watershed Council, and the Siuslaw Soil and Water Conservation District secured $350,000 in grants from the National Forest Foundation and the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board to get the project rolling. Now, after backhoes and excavators have constructed a new stream channel, the creek's drainage ditches are being plugged to return water to the new channel, which mimics the creek's original meandering route. Logs will be placed in the floodplain to create fish habitat, and students from nearby schools are replanting native vegetation while monitoring water quality. Thanks to the cooperative effort, the valley is well on its way to becoming a valuable piece in the larger restoration of the Siuslaw's coastal ecosystem. "It has been very exciting to manage a project with local partners on National Forest lands that not only restores fish and waterfowl habitat, but does it cost-effectively and with so many local people involved," says Hogervorst, the Karnowsky project's manager. "I see the Karnowsky Creek project as a model for future restoration in the Siuslaw basin. As a community, if we can put a stream back where it once flowed, think about what else we could do to restore the watershed." Indeed, the Karnowsky project is just one example of the community-centered approach toward watershed restoration in the Siuslaw area. A set of guiding principles that measure social opportunity as well as biological potential direct the work, identifying nine priority sub-watersheds where efforts will be first focused. The Forest is committed to adhering to 15-year planning cycles, including five years of activity followed by a 10-rest period for any particular restoration project. While restoration work shifts elsewhere, the rest period allows natural conditions to reestablish while monitoring of the site's recovery helps guide future management activities and build expertise that can be applied elsewhere. With its strong emphasis on restoration, the Siuslaw National Forest has shown itself to be a good fit for the Pacific Coast Watershed Partnership, and its funding illustrates that fact. During the past two years, the Forest has received roughly $985,000 in PCWP funding. That amount, combined with the Forest's partners and other funding sources, totals a $4.4 million restoration budget over the past two years. As of 2002, the Forest's restoration work - with the overriding goal of restoring ecosystem functions on a watershed scale - has included:
On the restored Bailey Creek, snorkel counts of fish present in the watershed jumped soon after work was completed. In 1998, just 754 coho were present in the system, but after the projects were finished in 2000, the counts skyrocketed - 8,776 in 2001 and 7,701 in 2002. In the Knowles Creek basin, coho salmon migration to the ocean was at just one percent of historic levels, after the area had experienced extensive logging and road construction. Seven years of ongoing riparian and instream restoration work has made a difference, though. The Forest and its partners placed more than 100 wood structures in six miles of stream, thinned 12 acres of riparian forest to encourage conifer growth, and replaced culverts on five miles of roads. Students helping monitor the basin's recovery found some startling results. More steelhead were found during a four-day period in May 2000 than in any of the previous eight years. And 2003 winter fish counts in Knowles Creek recorded 1,700 coho salmon adults, after the entire Siuslaw Basin had contained just 1,000 adult fish in 1999-2000. In the Deadwood sub-watershed, a long-term project involves 16 private landowners and several agencies, four years of instream habitat enhancement work were greatly enhanced by the addition of large logs flown in by helicopter last fall. This phase of the project was a combined effort of the Forest, the SWCD, the Watershed Council, and the Siuslaw Institute, and was funded by US Fish & Wildlife, Forest Service and the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board. More than 300 logs selected by wildlife biologists were felled and transported by air to sites along 12 miles of creeks on both government and private lands. The collaborative effort concludes one of the final stages of the aquatic restoration planning for the Deadwood basin. Such positive results help keep the momentum behind restoration, but it would not have started in the first place without leadership. Under former Forest Supervisor Jim Furnish, the Siuslaw was one of the first National Forests to begin decommissioning large numbers of roads and preparing timber sales that sought to thin forests to enhance ecological conditions just as much as to make money. This emphasis on restoration has continued and deepened under current Supervisor Gloria Brown, who is hopeful her staff can turn the Siuslaw NF into a national model. "It's a new model for forestry," Brown said to Newport News-Times reporter Joel Gallob. "But, it is slow and expensive work. This coalition of individuals and groups have given me an opportunity to discuss how we are doing it, from ridgetop to estuary. What you see here is something very unusual, and very important." Others are starting to recognize the uniqueness of what the Siuslaw is doing. The Forest's staff recently received a trio of awards from the U.S. Forest Service in recognition for their restoration efforts and involvement with the community. Beating out 155 National Forests and 20 National Grasslands, the Siuslaw was honored with U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth's Breaking Gridlock, Natural Resource Stewardship and Rise to the Future awards, which all recognize innovative approaches and management in analysis and implementation of projects. "This validates all the work we have been doing with our partners during the last decade", said Supervisor Brown. The Siuslaw River Restoration project is gaining international recognition as well. It has been selected as a finalist in the worldwide, prestigious competition, the Thiess International Riverprize, which recognizes excellence in river management and seeks to further the cause of restoring healthy rivers worldwide. The Siuslaw is one of five finalists out of 14 global nominations. The other finalists include projects on the Danube River, Fu-Nan Rivers in China, Alexander River in Israel and Palestine, and the Arvari River in India. Despite annual Forest budgets that have dwindled from $28 million in 1990 to $12 million in 2001, with the help of its partners the Suislaw NR has still able to keep restoration as its top priority. And building those connections with the community spurs the efforts of everyone - special interest groups, schools, non-profit organizations, private landowners and public agencies - to keep pushing ahead with the goal of rebuilding the basin's salmon populations and creating a diverse, resilient forest. "What we're seeing in the Siuslaw," said James Johnston of Eugene's Cascadia Wildlands Project to the News-Time's Gallob, "is an attempt to get others to buy into the way the Siuslaw does business. It's the only National Forest in the country that has managed to make industry, labor, environmentalists and community leaders happy. We here are all dedicated to continuing on the path the Siuslaw has chosen."
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