DESCRIPTION
This construction project aims to replace three fish barrier culverts (known as the triple culverts) with appropriately sized fish passable structure(s). Removing the barriers will provide 2.4 miles of riparian spawning and 15.6 acres of upstream wetland habitat for rearing Coho, steelhead, and sea run cutthroat. This is the last barrier in need of correction on Johnson Creek in the Hoko watershed.
The Johnson Creek Triple Culverts Restoration Project is a restoration project that seeks to construct the replacement of three adjacent, fish barrier culverts with a fish passable structure in order to restore open access to 15.6 acres of summer and winter juvenile salmon rearing as well as 1.7 linear miles of salmon spawning and rearing habitat. Replacement of these structures would also re-connect hydraulic processes within a wetland that is currently bisected roughly in half by the Hoko-Ozette Road. Fall chinook, coho, steelhead, bull trout, and cutthroat trout all inhabit this area and will benefit from the project. A tributary referred to as the Johnson B-Channel runs along the roads southern edge, within the road ditch, for over 600-feet before joining Johnson Creek at the culvert outlets. The Johnson B-Channel and the road threaten each other as there is no riparian buffer along a straightened and simplified channel and road aggregate is actively eroding into the stream. The project proposes to move this channel away from the roadway to improve the habitat conditions of this important spawning reach while protecting the new roadways structural earth walls from the undermining forces of the stream. Funds requested would contribute towards construction of the crossing replacement, roadway elevation required to establish appropriate structure freeboard and maintain vehicle sight lines, and relocation and habitat restoration of the Johnson B-Channel.
