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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 5, 2015)
Wednesday, August 5, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon WHYCHuS: Project will restore habitat and bridge Continued from page 1 vehicles or folks on foot from tangling with some of the massive heavy equipment rumbling through the forest hauling and pushing dirt and gravel and picking up and emplacing logs. The closure, which has been in place since June, will end as soon as the bridge is completed, according to fish biologist Mike Riehle. That is expected to happen in late September. The creek naturally wants to fan out in this area upstream of Pine Meadow Ranch, where a concrete irrigation diversion was removed last spring. The restoration work assists and enhances a network of braided channels. Riehle and Mathias Perle of the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council told The Nugget that the project covers 1-1/4 mile of “valley length.” With that comes three miles of peren- nial creek channel and five to six miles of seasonal chan- nels that the water flows into during the winter. Some of the heavy work involves filling in channels that were scoured many feet deep when the creek was confined. That involves some 40,000 cubic yards of gravel and a whole bunch of fill dirt. Robinson & Owen Heavy Construction, who won the contract for the project, has eight personnel on site, oper- ating two excavators, a bull- dozer, several huge off-high- way dump trucks and a water truck. Marc Rickabaugh, who was out supervising on the job last week, said the work is fun. The operators don’t have to deal with vehicle traffic and get to do work that they don’t ordinarily do. “These are good opera- tors,” he said. They have to be to stay “light on the land” — to the degree that’s possible with multi-ton equipment. And they are maneuvering around trees and on very uneven surfaces. “It’s definitely not normal construction work,” Riehle said. “You have to think differently.” One excavator was at work last week picking up logs that had been cut during the initial phase of the proj- ect and depositing them into the stream channel, following hand signals from hydrolo- gist Cari Press. Her job is about engineer- ing good, natural channels. “I look at it more in (terms of) channel function,” Press said. “The purpose of all our wood structures is to dissi- pate stream energy; to slow it down.” That has a beneficial effect for fish, Riehle explained, as the excavator operator swung the bucket of his rig into the butt end of a log to seat it amid a tangle of other logs. “It splits the flow and cre- ates gravel disposition,” he said. When the creek floods, it photo by Jim Cornelius A bulldozer fills in a scoured-out ditch during Whychus Creek restoration. scours out areas around such obstructions. “When the flood recedes, that’s a nice pool,” Riehle said. And all of that cre- ates good habitat for fish. The ultimate goal is to see Whychus become rearing habitat for young fish. And, perhaps we will see the return of steelhead runs. It took a determined effort to begin to return the creek to a more natural state, and it took partnerships. Those partnerships include the Forest Service; Deschutes River Conservancy; the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council; the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs; PGE; the Deschutes Land Trust; and a variety of pri- vate landowners, all of whom have worked separately and in concert to restore these waters. See WhyChus on page 24 20th Anniversary The Locals’ Choice for Service with a Smile! The Hair Caché Your Barber Shop! 152 E. Main Ave. / 541-549-8771 Jeff, Theresa, Ann, Jamie, Shiela, Terri, Shanntyl, Brittany & Art Show “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying.” — Wynton Marsalis, Ambassador of Jazz Dr. ponnie Malone, DC Sisters Chiropractic Clinic • 16190 Hwy. 126, Sisters • 541-549-7141 Serving Sisters for 33 Years Try Our Famous Fish & Chips! Choice of Halibut or Cod Cut in-house. Homemade coleslaw! Breakfast & lunch 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m . Full-service dining in the bar nightly until 10 p.m. (21 & over) 171 W. Cascade Ave., Sisters | 541 -549-2631 7 Friday, August 7th muried Art Sale 5pm-8pm Refreshments Saturday, August 8th Country Fair & Art Show 10am-3pm ������������������������������������������ 1/8 mile west of Sisters on the McKenzie Highway Silent Auction • Good Book Sale • Animals Children’s Games • Face Painting • Music • Bouncy House Ribs • Hotdogs • Marionberry Cobbler Country Store, Cake Walk and Much More! All proceeds are donated to community support agencies.