Deer Creek gains $120,000 grant

The Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board (OWEB) has selected the McKenzie Watershed Council to receive a Salmon License Plate grant for a project in McKenzie Bridge.  The grant money comes from the extra fee Oregonians pay when they purchase Salmon Plates for their vehicles.  

The “Deer Creek Floodplain Enhancement Project” totals $118,580 and will place large wood in Deer Creek to increase the stream’s complexity and reconnect the stream to the surrounding floodplain, improving habitat for Chinook Salmon and Bull Trout in Lane County.

Details of the project include pulling 24 live stream-adjacent Douglas fir or Western red cedar trees directly into Deer Creek with their root wads intact via a truck mounted yarder. Fifteen of the trees will be part of new large logjams that will be placed with an excavator.

Other trees decked at staging sites along Deer Creek access roads will be moved closer to placement sites within the floodplain utilizing a variety of methods including skidders, a truck mounted yarder and a skyline. A truck-mounted yarder will be used to transport logs to the floodplain in the lower section of the project area in order to minimize impact to the adjacent McKenzie River Trail without having to build a skid road.

“This project is a great investment of the state’s Salmon License Plate dollars,” said Meta Loftsgaarden, OWEB’s executive director. “This investment benefits both Chinook Salmon and Bull Trout habitat, while also supporting the local natural resource economy.”

In addition to the Deer Creek project, the OWEB Board selected three other projects to be awarded Salmon License Plate funding: the $300,000 Fivemile-Bell restoration project in Douglas County, the $1.26 million  East Fork Millicoma Oxbow Reconnection and Habitat Restoration in  Coos County, and the $525,000  Oxbow Dredge Mining Restoration in Grant County.

Image above: Photo Courtesy MWC. An example of how large wood – can recruit gravel for a rainbow/cutthroat redd, foreground (arrow).

McKenzie River Reflections