Applegater Summer 2017
APWC’s Butcherknife Creek
project, a cut above
Update on the Upper Applegate
Watershed Restoration Project
BY BARBARA SUMMERHAWK
BY DON BOUCHER
Fifteen miles
west of Grants
Pass, Butcherknife
Creek slices
through the
northwesternmost
section of the
Applegate
watershed, feeding
into Slate Creek
right below Hayes
Hill, the highest
point on Highway
199 between here
and the coast.
The Applegate
Partnership and
The dilapidated Butcherknife Creek culvert will be
Watershed Council
replaced with a bridge this summer.
(APWC) has
been working to
replace this creek’s rusting and dilapidated and funding were complicated, time-
culvert, which is a serious barrier to fish consuming, and expensive. Removed
passage and makes passable the only road from Josephine County Public Works
providing ingress and egress to residents management, Butcherknife Creek Road
of Butcherknife Creek Road and Onion is now maintained by local residents,
Mountain Road. The culvert will be who don’t have the resources to replace
replaced with a bridge this summer when the culvert. The APWC worked with all
streamflows recede. In keeping with the the stakeholders: landowners along the
APWC mission to maintain and restore private road, permitting agencies, design
ecological health to the valley, this project reviewers, contractors, engineers, fisheries
will provide access to the creek for coho biologists, funders, and so on.
Soon the Butcherknife Creek Project
salmon, a threatened species listed by
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric will be completed, providing safe passage
for salmon to upstream habitat and safe
Administration (NOAA) Fisheries.
Butcherknife Creek is a tributary of passage across the creek for emergency
Slate Creek, which is one of our watershed’s vehicles that currently could collapse
most important streams due to its potential the culvert. This is an example of the
for highly productive habitat for coho collaborative work the APWC provides in
and chinook salmon and steelhead. bringing landowners and agencies together
Butcherknife Creek flows year-round in the to improve the health of the Applegate
upper reaches of the Slate Creek watershed watershed.
All of our projects can benefit from
and provides adult and juvenile salmon
and steelhead crucial cold water refugia efforts by volunteers willing to work on
activities in their realm of interest and
and rearing habitat.
Coho, it should be noted, were once as ability. If you would like to support and
prevalent as chinook salmon, but are now join in the APWC’s mission “to promote
at five percent of historical levels because ecosystem health across the Applegate
of human impact on aquatic habitat. watershed through stewardship, education,
Historically, coho, chinook and steelhead and restoration carried out in partnership
provided food for Native Americans and with landowners, agencies, and other
settlers and for bears and other wildlife, interested parties while contributing to
besides supplying nutrients for small fish local economic and community well-
being,” visit apwc.info, our Facebook page
after the adults have spawned and died.
Replacement of the culvert has been a or Instagram site, or email us at contact@
five-year project. The APWC and Oregon apwc.info. The watershed needs you!
Barbara Summerhawk
Department of Fish and Wildlife fisheries
Applegate Partnership and Watershed
biologists began developing this project
Council Board Member
in 2013 based on fish passage and habitat
barbara@apwc.info
needs in the watershed, but the design
The Upper Applegate Watershed
Restoration Project (UAWRP) is designed
to implement actions to restore structure
and processes in the Upper Applegate
watershed and provide for landscape
conditions resilient to disturbances and
climate change. The project aims to protect
the following important community-
identified values: recreation (motorized
and nonmotorized), late-successional
forests (northern spotted owl habitat),
biodiversity (both plant and animal),
important connectivity corridors, roadless
and unmanaged areas, sustainable flow of
goods and services, and human life and
property. This proposal is a result of over a
year and a half of meetings and workshops
with the US Forest Service, the Bureau
of Land Management, and community
members. The most recent meeting was
held on April 19.
In addition to building relationships
with local communities, this planning
process helps us to move toward the
vision and goals in the Applegate Adaptive
Management Area (AMA) Guide by
engaging the community early and often
in the process.
The “benefits from nature” concept
of this planning process underscores
relationships between ecological, social,
and economic conditions in and around
the AMA. This concept aligns well with
goals in the Applegate AMA Guide and
the Applegate Fire Plan, i.e., to manage
the land adaptively to achieve social
and ecological sustainability. Using this
approach, we hope to highlight the
goods and services provided by forests to
communities.
To further refine proposed actions,
the planning team organized the key
community values into three major
themes: (1) water and aquatic habitat, (2)
terrestrial biodiversity, and (3) community
and culture. For each of these, the team
described objectives to protect, enhance,
or maintain important values. The
community identified projects to deal
with threats to those key values.
The following is an example from the
list of actions for the UAWRP:
Two of the objectives identified by
the community are (1) manage forests to
increase biodiversity and (2) develop and
maintain habitat-connectivity corridors.
One of the actions that will address these
objectives is to enhance pollinator habitat
to benefit monarch butterflies and other
native pollinators. To enhance pollinator
habitat, UAWRP would plant native
pollinator plant species on five sites in
the Upper Applegate Valley (Flumet Flat
Campground, Jackson Campground,
Kanaka Gulch Flat/Kanaka Gulch,
and Nick Wright Flat). A low-intensity
prescribed fire in the fall to burn grassy fine
fuels would improve the site before seeding.
In addition to providing butterfly habitat,
this action would provide the following
benefits: wildlife species diversity, natural
pest control, nutrient cycling/soil fertility,
recreation opportunities, scientific and
educational opportunities, as well as
identification of cultural and intrinsic
values. This is just one example that you
will find in the scoping notice.
Additionally, this planning and
implementation effort will utilize
adaptive management principles. Adaptive
management is a process that bases
management actions on clearly defined
outcomes and monitoring to determine if
actions are meeting desired goals. If not, the
process facilitates changes in management
that will best ensure those outcomes are
met. The most critical and challenging
component of adaptive management is to
monitor the work that we do. As we move
through the planning process, we will
engage with the community to provide
input as we develop a monitoring strategy
for the Upper Applegate project.
By now many of you will likely have
seen the scoping letter or notice asking
for comments on the proposed Upper
Applegate Watershed Restoration Project.
We are in the process of seeking comments
and concerns related to the proposed
implementation actions to determine if
there are issues or other aspects that we
did not consider, and whether there are
any alternative ways to achieve the project’s
purpose. Proposed project descriptions and
maps are available by stopping by the Star
Ranger Station at 6941 Upper Applegate
Road, Jacksonville, Oregon, or calling
541-899-3800.
For those who have been involved
through the lengthy series of meetings
and workshops, we sincerely want to say
thank you.
If you have questions or comments,
please feel free to contact me.
Don Boucher • 541-899-3840
Applegate AMA Team Leader
Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest
dboucher@fs.fed.us
Back in Time Applegate School history
BY EVELYN BYRNE WILLIAMS WITH
JANEEN SATHRE
Applegate School was built in
1879-1880 on land donated by Rial
Benedict. This school was on the west
side of Humbug Creek near where the
Applegate School stands today.
My grandparents were living on
Humbug Creek, where my dad, John
Byrne, was born in 1887. His oldest
sister and brother were already going
to Applegate School. The family moved
from there to Forest Creek and then to
Watkins in the Upper Applegate area.
However, an Applegate School card (see
photo) lists my dad in attendance while
he was staying with the family’s good
friends, the John O’Briens, who lived
a few miles from the school.
Evelyn Byrne Williams with
Janeen Sathre • 541-899-1443
13