The project includes construction of two log stringer bridges to improve instream vehicle crossings and provides fish passage through an existing earth embankment to 3 spring fed year round ponds. A previous restoration project on the Heath property, completed in 2008, created fish passage from the Methow River to the lower of three large spring-fed ponds on the Heath property. This project aims to enhance fish passage to the middle pond. Although limited passage from the river may be available during high water, access to the off-channel habitat in the middle pond is limited, at best. Currently, three small culverts allow water to exit the middle pond through a primitive road prism, but the culverts do not meet fish passage criteria. This project will replace two of the culverts with a log stringer bridge and roughened channel, allowing fish passage into the middle pond from the lower pond. The third culvert will be replaced with a drivable dip, which will serve as an emergency ford and spillway to allow overflow from the pond if the fish passage channel is temporarily blocked by debris or beaver activity. Subsequent to construction completion, riparian buffer establishment will be completed by planting native vegetation on the banks.
Project Features
- Remove a section of placed fill and the two existing southern 12" culverts from the earth road prism
- Remove the existing northern culvert from the road prism
- Modify the road prism to incorporate a bridge to replace the southern culverts and a drivable dip/emergency spillway to replace the northern culvert
- Construct an engineered roughened channel to serve as a defined stream between the middle pond and the lower pond to allow fish passage between the ponds and regulating the water elevation in the middle pond
- Establish riparian buffer plantings on the banks between the road and the waters edge