2013 lineal feet of new channel, designed using Rosgen methodology to include appropriate pool, glide, riffle, depth/width, and erosion control techniques, will replace 1585 lineal feet of channelized reach, increasing sinuosity by approximately 50%.

The project site is approximately 2 miles NE of the town of Lostine, in Wallowa County, Oregon. This reach of the Wallowa River was channelized into a steep, narrow course at the toe of a slope along the eastern edge of the natural floodplain. An 1867 USGS survey shows the historic river to have been much different at that time, approximately 100 feet wide in an open gravelly bed, surrounded by thickets of “Balm, Birch, Willow and Alder”. Balm, short for “Balm of Gilead”, is the species we now refer to as Cottonwood.

Parameters of concern:
1. Water quality including temperature, chemistry and nutrients;
2. Habitat elements including pool quality, off-channel habitat, and refugia;
3. Poor riparian vegetation recruitment, growth and stability.
4. Channel width to depth ratio.
5. Altered peak and base flow characteristics (influenced by Wallowa Lake Dam).
6. Flood plain connectivity/interaction is absent because of incised channel and diked banks

Objectives:
1. Increase base flow depth in the Wallowa River channel, increase flooding frequency and depth on the meadow, and create pool and riffle sequences that increase the consistency of bedload                 transport and deposition on the floodplain.
2. Increase stream channel sinuosity, channel length, and geomorphic stability, and decrease channel gradient.
3. Improve instream, riparian, floodplain/meadow conditions and functions, including improved quality and use of riparian and meadow areas for native plant communities and wildlife.
4. Improve/increase vegetative cover/shade to moderate stream temperatures.
5. Improve/increase streambank stability.
6. Improve surface water and ground water interaction with resultant lowering of summertime stream temperature and increase wintertime stream temperature.
7. Improve properties of coldwater fish habitat and terrestrial and aquatic macroinvertebrate community composition.
8. Improve/restore use of restored stream channel segments by anadromous fish.  

In this vicinity the Wallowa river was channelized into a steep, narrow course (20-30 feet wide) at the east edge of its flood plain with an artificially high  (~1%)  gradient in this reach.  Consequently, spawning and rearing habitat for steelhead and spring Chinook salmon has been significantly reduced in the project area

Design will be completed by Vance McGowan, ODFW Habitat Biologist; and Allen Childs, CTUIR Wildlife Biologist. CREP design will be conducted by Tom Smith, District Conservationist for Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Alan Bahn, Snake Basin Area Wetlands Coordinator, NRCS.

Specific actions involved in channel construction include excavation of soil and gravel, shaping point bars, cutting and shaping outside meanders, riffle/channel cross-over sections, and channel thalweg, and shaping terraces and/or streambank slopes (generally 3:1 ratio).