DESCRIPTION
Proposed actions include fish passage improvements, riparian restoration, and LWD placement. Ruby Creek flows through three culverts upstream of the Glenwood Road crossing and North of Harper Road. Downstream supports good rearing habitat and upstream supports available habitat including Ruby Marsh and Square Lake. Each of the three culverts has 67% passability. Improved fish passage would restore longitudinal connectivity at road crossings, improving sediment and organic material supply and transport, nutrient cycling, and localized hydrology. It would also address improvement of instream biological processes such as food chain support, sunlight, and detritus. Riparian restoration (i.e. native plantings, removal of non-native plants) would address riparian processes of long-term wood recruitment, stream shading, bank and floodplain complexity, and food chain support. Placement of in channel LWD would also prevent further channel incision and further improve habitat. LWD would increase the amount of instream wood to increase hydraulic roughness and help restore channel complexity in the intermediate period while riparian forests are developing. Wood placement promotes scour and deposition processes that form complex substrate, pools and bars, and secondary channel formation.