This project was initiated on July 1, 1984 and allows for initial landowner contacts, agreement development, project design, budgeting, and implementation for anadromous fish habitat improvement on privately owned lands within the John Day Basin.  

The purpose of the John Day Fish Habitat Enhancement Program is to enhance production of indigenous wild stocks of spring chinook and summer steelhead within the subbasin through habitat protection, enhancement, and fish passage improvements. The initial Cooperative Agreements with landowners are for a term of 15 years to try and give the riparian vegetation time to get established enough to be stable if and when domestic livestock is allowed back into the riparian areas.  From observations  landowners have kept up the maintenance on the original riparian fences on approximately 90% of the expired Cooperative Agreements.  In high priority areas the program has renewed/rebuilt and/or maintained riparian protection fences for an additional 10 years.  The riparian buffer widths vary, but the averaged minimum is approximately 30 feet above the ordinary high water line. The Fish Habitat Program goals are to improve as much riparian vegetation in the 15 year Cooperative Agreement that is signed by each landowner.  The restoration of vegetation tropically results in the restoration of natural stream processes and other factors such as bank/channel stability, temperature, macro/micro invertebrates, sediment transportation, magnitude of water runoff, water quality, and fisheries health.

Under this contract we will coordinate with 5 landowners (Marx, Phillips, ODFW, USFS, and Pryor) and construct approximately 7.2 miles of riparian protection fence to protect 115 acres and 4.00 miles of stream. The riparian fences will include approximately 35 gates and 6 watergaps at the sites identified below:
• Build 2.00 miles of riparian fence on Wind Creek a tributary of the South Fork John Day River. (Phillips property)
• Build 2.25 miles of riparian fence on SF Murderers Creek, a tributary of the South Fork John Day River (USFS property).
• Build 1.20 miles of riparian fence on Mac Creek, a tributary of the Lower John Day River (Marx Property).
• Build 1.75 miles riparian fence on the Murderers Creek (ODFW property).
• Sign a cooperative agreement to maintain 0.5 miles of riparian fence on the north side of Long Creek, the south side was built in 2018 (Neal property).
• Complete BDA design on Hay Creek with Gilliam SWCD (Pryor property).
• Install approximately 10 BDA's on and 1.5 miles of Hay Creek (Pryor property).
• Design BDA and Instream structures on Tex Creek, SFWSCD will provide technical assistance cost share (ODFW property).
• Design Murderers Creek's instream structures and floodplain reconnection project with BOR (ODFW property).

Considerable time is spent coordinating with landowners on the Cooperative Agreement, fence alignment, gates, and water gap locations. Fish habitat staff stake structure locations and GPS the locations prior to landowner approval. The GPS coordinates are then given to Grant Soil and Water Conservation District (GSWCD) to map the riparian fence layout. GSWCD advertises the opportunity to bid on the project in the local newspaper, set up the bid packets, and determine whether each contractor is qualified and has the proper licensing, bonding and insurance requirements for the project. Cultural surveys are arranged with BPA environmental compliance personnel. A pre-bid tour of the project area is given to the contractors so they can view the terrain, fence layout, and design including all structures. Sealed bids are submitted to GSWCD by interested contractors by the due date specified on the bid packet and the project is then awarded to the lowest qualified bidder. The project time frame is established depending on the length of the project, (typically we allow 3 weeks for each mile of fence to be constructed). ODFW fish habitat personnel, habitat biologist/ senior technician oversee the progress and quality of the work. In some cases materials will also be delivered by ODFW personnel to save on contractor time/money and for program efficiency. At the end of the project the Fish Habitat personnel will complete a final walk through of the project and problem areas will be flagged and corrected by the contractor before final payment is requested and paid by GSWCD through a sub contract. Because the fish habitat program has to maintain the project for 15 years, the specifications to the riparian fence construction are closely monitored. Photopoints are established at the beginning of each project and then retaken every three years.

The John Day Fish Habitat Program also has under contract the Grant County Weed Department. Fish habitat personnel when on riparian project sites keep an eye out for noxious weeds on the counties top ten weed list. A small budget has been set aside to spray approximately 70 acres on projects currently under cooperative agreements. This has been a great benefit to our program to be able to spray weeds within the riparian area, if nothing else to show landowners that weeds can be maintained even in high dispersal areas.

The John Day Fish Habitat Enhancement Program maintains the riparian projects for the term of 15 years. Currently there are approximately 290 miles or riparian fence associated with 69 different landowners in 11 different counties,  Gilliam, Grant, Wheeler, Crook, Harney, Jefferson, Morrow, Sherman, Umatilla, Union, and Wasco. For example, We currently have 9 projects in Gilliam county that we maintain from our main headquarters in John Day, Oregon. Just to get from John Day to Condon takes approximately three hours, then to get to half of the project sites is another hour. On these days it takes two maybe three program personnel, and ATV's to cover as much ground as possible to get a single project area maintained and put back into workable order. These are usually long days depending on wildlife, Spring run-off damage and numbers of trees that have fallen during wind storms or fire damaged areas during the summer months. There are typically trees/rocks that have fallen on project fences and structures that need fixing. In the summer months there are occasionally flash floods that go through an area which requires attention to the watergaps and mainline fences as well. Program personnel have learned to cover more ground by dropping one person off and have them walk through sections that are only accessible by foot and then drive down a mile or so leave the ATV and leap frog to the lower end. This saves time so personnel can work in one direction and not have to back track. The program keeps track of where each day maintenance has been completed and if additional materials is need on the next visit it is written down. The program has two full time positions, one 6 month (Half 6 months fish Habitat and half 6 months Screens and Passage), one 5 month permanent seasonal position, and a 4 month secretarial position.

The Fish Habitat Program coordinates with many different agencies. The projects in Gilliam county partner with GSWCD,  projects in Wheeler are associated with Wheeler Soil and Water Conservation District, and the John Day Fish Habitat Program also works with the Tribal entities of both Umatilla and Warm Springs Tribes.