DESCRIPTION
This project will furnish final designs for five current fish passage barriers along the Oil City Road in the Lower Hoh watershed.
This project is in Jefferson County, approximately 20 miles south of Forks, WA. This project will furnish final designs for five current fish passage barriers along the Oil City Road in the Lower Hoh watershed. The Oil City road runs from Highway 101 to the western coast near the mouth of the Hoh River and the Pacific Ocean. The tributaries to the lower mainstem Hoh provide spawning and rearing habitat for adult and juvenile coho, Chinook, and steelhead, as well as important high flow and cold water refugia for juveniles and adults. When a road culvert becomes a significant fish barrier, it can greatly reduce available habitat for spawning, rearing, and refugia (e.g. high flow, low flow, water temperature). The five fish passage barrier culverts in this proposal all have modeled intrinsic potential for coho and steelhead upstream of the Oil City road.T he goal of this project is to produce final, construction-ready designs for five road crossing fish barriers to increase the quantity and quality of accessible spawning and rearing habitat for coho, Chinook, steelhead, and trout species. The designs will be engineered to accommodate increased peak flows anticipated from climate change and allow for natural sediment, wood, and nutrient transport. Creating these construction-ready designs and contract packages will accelerate their replacement when funding becomes available.