DESCRIPTION
This proposal requests
funds to ensure that full habitat benefits are realized from past investments
in high-priority salmon recovery projects by supporting stewardship and
follow-up actions to ensure success.
Work includes weed control, replanting, and fence maintenance that will
protect and help establish robust, native riparian plant communities at eight
previous project sites within the Yakima Basin.
#1 Reecer Creek at Pott Road
Plant 500 plants per year within 17 acres of
floodplain habitat adjacent to a ½ mile reach of Reecer Creek.
Remove 3 acres of lan
Mid Columbia Fisheries (MCF) used funding to support stewardship activities on more than 65 acres along more than 10 miles of river and stream at six riparian and floodplain restoration sites located in the Yakima Basin. The project was a multi-partner collaboration to complete riparian restoration and/or to maintain restoration plantings previously installed on a total of six priority restoration sites in the Yakima Basin: Yakima River (RM 192), Jack Cr, Reecer Cr, Wilson Cr, Little Rattlesnake Cr, and Lower Cowiche Cr. Providing adequate stewardship to restoration projects helped achieve the project goals of enhancing and restoring native riparian and floodplain habitat, watershed function, and aquatic habitat in tributaries and the mainstem throughout the Yakima Basin. Species supported through this stewardship effort include ESA-listed Mid-Columbia Steelhead and bull trout, as well as Coho, Chinook, and Cutthroat Trout. This project will complete multi-year restoration actions and assure that investments-to-date on projects are not lost. Funds will support weed control, replanting, irrigation and fence maintenance.
The sites included in this proposal were selected after MCF staff solicited and received input from partners in the basin on actions of highest salmon recovery priorities for stewardship. Most of these projects were prioritized by SRFB in the past under the initial grant application process. Stewardship at these sites allowed these projects to provide the greatest habitat value for the investments made. MCF also prioritized sites internally, according to highest risk to investments to date, and relative priority to known SRFB and local TAG priorities.