The overall project goal is to restore natural channel functions and processes that provide increased capacity to spawn and rear ESA listed Salmon and Steelhead while protecting and maintaining the utility and economic viability of working ranches.  The project objectives are to protect habitat, enhance floodplain connectivity, in-stream structural diversity and complexity, and riparian habitat conditions assisting Salmon/Steelhead recovery.  Project activities reduce excessive bank erosion, heavy sediment loads, and high summer water temperatures, while creating and or enhancing complex fish habitat, especially large wood structures, and increasing riparian vegetation. Consequently, these limiting factors for Spring/Summer Chinook, Steelhead, and Bull trout in the Upper Grande Ronde/Catherine Creek Subbasin will be addressed.
  
The project area is located within Reach UGS10A (Summer Steelhead) and Reach CCC3 (Spring-Summer Chinook) (Northeast Oregon Snake River Recovery Plan, Draft (NOAA, March 2012) and BiOp Expert Panel Draft Reach Delineations (BPA/BOR, April 2012). Geographically, these reaches encompass Middle Catherine Creek from the confluence of Pyles Creek upstream to the North and South Forks of Catherine Creek.  The Project Area is also located within Reach 4 of the Bureau of Reclamation Tributary Assessment (BOR, February 2012) and has been identified as one of the highest priority reaches for restoration actions.  BOR and ODFW assessments found Catherine Creek within this project area to include stream bank instability, high channel width/depth ratios, poor riparian vegetation, lack of side channel habitat and floodplain connectivity, and poor in-channel diversity and complexity within individual reaches. Additionally, the project reach is affected by winter icing, high summer water temperatures, and low summer base flow.

Phase II, current phase includes:

Four side channels will be constructed within this project reach to provide off-channel habitat during a wide range of flows up to a 100 year flood event.  Additional habitat enhancement efforts include:

•   Installation of 40 LWM structures

•   Construction of 1 backwater alcove to provide juvenile Salmonid refuge and connection to an adjacent spring supplying colder water during low flow season.

•   Removal of 1 riprap berm, restructuring of over-widened and eroded banks and a low elevation bench to promote vegetative growth.

•   Creation of 2 earthen berms totaling 1,266 feet in length with a 8 foot top width to provide flood protection of stream adjacent outbuildings.

•   Boulder placement to induce ice break-up during winter months and provide bank and an existing bridge protection from erosion during high flow events.

•   Installation a hardened livestock crossing.

•   Using a combination of live stakes, plugs, and container plants all disturbed areas during construction will be re-seeded using native seed mixes and plants.  The establishment of a healthy, self-sustaining native vegetative community throughout the project site is vital to the success of a stream enhancement project.  Re-vegetation immediately after grading provides key initial site stabilization and energy dissipation.  Such communities promote short-term and long-term bank stabilization, shade for cooler water, protective cover for fish, habitat for terrestrial wildlife (birds, mammals, amphibians, and macro invertebrates), and future wood material recruitment.

The completed project area will further sustain Steelhead, Chinook and Bull trout, as well as other species.  Specific project benefits include:

•   Potential increased summer base flow conditions and decreased summer high water temperatures.

•   Increased winter temperatures with increased hyporheic connectivity and improved riparian and floodplain conditions.

•   Improved/restored floodplain connectivity and natural channel morphology with stable channel form.

•   Improved distribution and sorting of sediment and potentially increased sediment storage at controlled locations.

•   Increased/reconnected side channels and alcove habitat.

•   Improved channel dimension, pattern, and profile with decreased width/depth ratios, increased sinuosity, and decreased channel slope.

•   Engineered LWM structures will maintain the desired channel configuration and increase in-stream habitat complexity.

•   Increased in-channel complexity and diversity with a distribution of large pools, glides, runs, and riffles of various sizes and complexity.

•   Improved year-round fish passage through removal of 4 annual push-up dams.

•   Long-term increase LWM recruitment from near non-existent conditions through re-vegetation of native Willow, Cottonwood, Alder, shrubs and grass plantings.  The additional vegetation will also add stability to stream banks and decrease erosion.

•   Riparian plantings and exclosure riparian fencing will increase wildlife habitat created within the project area.

•   Decreased landowners’ maintenance of irrigation devices and screens and decreased risk to juvenile stranding in irrigation ditches.

•   Conservation easements will protect the project and allow it to mature.

Project Maintenance:  USWCD, CTUIR, ODFW staff, and the landowners will maintain the project.  Extensive maintenance of in-stream habitat enhancement structures and exclosure fencing is not anticipated.  Maintenance associated with the conservation easements includes annual fence inspection, repair and maintenance of planted materials consisting of managing competing vegetation to increase plant survival rates.  A weed management plan is currently being developed and will be implemented once Phase II of the project is completed.