Soda Fork Creek is located 20 miles east of Sweet Home Oregon and is a tributary to the
South Santiam River. It is part of an important watershed for salmon and has the potential
to provide habitat for threatened species such as Winter Steelhead and Chinook Salmon.
So why don't fish spawn in these waters? While Soda Fork Creek may appear a healthy,beautiful
stream to the casual observer, hydrologists and fish biologists know it is lacking a key component --
large downed wood.
Well, Soda Fork was scoured down to bedrock. Because of past practices where they came in
and they logged out the -- they had big big cedar logs that were in this and it retained
all the gravel and now it's all gone.
To replace the missing wood that once trapped the gravel and created spawning beds,
the Forest Service and the South Santiam Watershed Council developed the Soda Fork Creek Restoration Project. (Begin Music by Dee B - Have We Met)
Stream experts carefully selected trees based on size and location.
They planned each tree's placement in order to create a stable and complex log jam.
Trees were not cut, but rather pulled over in order to keep the root wad attached.
Keeping the root wad intact will protect the structure from high flood events,
which would otherwise push the wood downstream.
Experienced contractors were hired to use cables and heavy machinery to topple the trees.
Each structure that we put in of all those eight structures, or whatever they are, should
be one that is clear on the bottom, engaging the stream and then more multiple pieces on top of that
so the wood will engage the stream at all different flow levels.
In the end, 34 trees were added to the Soda Fork Creek.
The amount of wood placed in the stream was based historical data and is intended to replicate natural log jams.
While it may look messy to the human eye, it mimics what should have been here all along. (Music fades)
In this particular case, the logs in the stream will be able to trap the gravel that the fish
need to spawn. They also trap leaf litter that then becomes the base of the food chain,
right, the bugs eat the leaves and then the fish eat the bugs. It restores the stream,
and so everything that has evolved with the stream in these conditions has evolved with
wood in the stream as well. Right, so it's all part of the whole ecosystem to have wood in
the streams. And probably there's a lot of reasons that we don't even understand
why it's important for it to be that way, but that's the way it is naturally, so that's
the way we are trying to make it again.
With the help of a nearby high school, hydrologists will monitor the creek's changes over the
next several years. The students are measuring stream width, recording location and number
of pools and riffles, and using photo points to track the changes.
We're hoping to see a lot more gravel throughout this whole reach, and a lot more pools,
and so, spawning gravel areas and pools but we'll see in five years. Hopefully we'll see hundreds of steelhead spawning.
That'd be cool. (Begin music by Gillicuddy - Springish)