A6
News
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
North Fork restoration projects funded
protection on Granite Creek,
develops dependable alterna-
tive water sources, eliminates
invasive weeds and thins up-
land juniper.”
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
The North Fork John Day
Watershed Council recently
received funding that will help
them complete three resto-
ration projects this year. The
awards were announced by the
Oregon Watershed Enhance-
ment Board. Funding comes
from the Oregon Lottery.
Desolation Creek
Phase 3 of the Desolation
Creek Wet Meadow Resto-
ration Project was awarded
$73,233. The project calls for
installing 2.5 miles of fencing
to protect 25.5 acres of sensi-
tive wet meadow habitat and
is expected to take place from
June through December.
Desolation Creek origi-
nates in the Southern Blue
Mountains and drains about
69,643 acres with 230 stream
miles. The watershed provides
critical spawning and rear-
ing habitat for mid-Columbia
By Mateusz Perkowski
The council
Bear Creek
The Bear Creek Resto-
ration Project was awarded
$81,200. Work is expected to
take place from July through
September. The tributary to the
Middle Fork of the John Day
River is located about a mile
downstream from Galena.
The project includes ex-
cavating a channel through
historic mine tailings, placing
large pieces of wood in the
creek and creating beaver dam
analogues in the creek to im-
prove fish habitat.
“This project will allow
migratory fish access to a pre-
viously inaccessible drainage
while also improving that hab-
itat for spawning and rearing
of juvenile salmon and steel-
head,” project coordinator Jus-
tin Powell said.
Contributed photo
Members of the Oregon Youth Conservation Corps under
direction of the North Fork John Day Watershed Council
in 2016-2017 placed tree limbs in meadow gullies to
slow erosion and capture sediment at the Big Mosquito
Project along the Middle Fork of the John Day River
downstream of Galena.
spring-run chinook salmon,
bull trout and mid-Columbia
steelhead. Both bull trout and
steelhead are designated for
protection under the Endan-
gered Species Act.
The project will take place
on a 13,400-acre property
purchased by Ecotrust Forest
Management Inc. in 2014 for
restoration and community
investment. The land is most-
ly kept open to the public for
hiking and camping, with three
families leasing portions of the
property for livestock.
“When landowners partner
with the North Fork John Day
Watershed Council and the
Oregon Watershed Enhance-
ment Board, great restoration
work can be done,” said Marty
Eisenbraun, a natural resource
manager with Ecotrust Forest
Management. “Critical habi-
tat restoration work is accom-
plished while still managing
timber and range resources.”
Granite Creek
The Walton: Ritter Land
Management Team Granite
Creek Restoration Project was
awarded $103,687. The work
is expected to take place from
July through December.
Granite Creek is considered
an important fish-bearing trib-
utary of the Middle Fork of the
John Day River. The project
will take place near Highway
395 about 2-3 miles north of
the Ritter bridge on adjacent
properties owned by Paul Wal-
ton and Jimmy Walton.
Encroaching juniper will
be removed on 100 acres and
noxious weeds will be sprayed
on 50 acres. To allow in-
creased livestock management
in the area, four springs will be
developed to supply watering
troughs and about 1 mile of
fencing will be installed along
Granite Creek.
“This project demonstrates
that natural resource concerns
and private landowner goals
can come together to form a
mutually beneficial project,”
Jimmy Walton said. “This
undertaking provides riparian
Environmentalists
hope to revive 15-year-
old grazing lawsuit
EO Media Group
The North Fork John Day
Watershed Council was es-
tablished in the mid-1990s to
work with agencies and pri-
vate landowners to develop
upland, in-stream and riparian
restoration projects, Execu-
tive Director Valeen Madden
said.
With a staff of five full-
time workers, the nonprofit
group maintains an office in
Long Creek and partners with
the Confederated Tribes of
Warm Springs, Oregon De-
partment of Forestry, U.S.
Forest Service, Grant Soil &
Water Conservation District
and other agencies.
The council also manages
the only Oregon Youth Con-
servation Corps crew in Grant
County, she said. The 14- to
18-year-old workers are typi-
cally hired for five-week ses-
sions, Madden said.
This year, the crew will
remove fencing and plant
vegetation along Long Creek,
maintain trails in the wilder-
ness, help the Eastern Oregon
Trail Alliance construct new
bike trails in the Magone Lake
area and install fencing to pro-
tect young aspen stands from
elk and deer.
Aspen stands provide good
habitat for birds and small
mammals and aid in water
retention, Madden said. After
they’ve matured and fencing is
removed, the aspen stands will
provide important winter hab-
itat for elk and deer, she said.
For more information on
the North Fork John Day Wa-
tershed Council, visit nfjdwc.
org or call 541-421-3018.
Environmentalists hope
to resurrect a 15-year-old
lawsuit over grazing im-
pacts on bull trout in Ore-
gon’s Malheur National For-
est by appealing a ruling that
favored ranchers.
In April, U.S. District
Judge Michael Mosman dis-
missed a complaint initially
filed in 2003 by the Oregon
Natural Desert Association
and the Center for Biologi-
cal Diversity, which claimed
cattle harm the threatened
fish species by trampling
egg nests and raising water
temperatures.
The two environmental
groups are now challenging
that decision before the 9th
U.S. Circuit Court of Ap-
peals, which takes about 15
months to resolve such cases
on average.
At this point, the plain-
tiffs have simply filed a no-
tice of appeal, which doesn’t
lay out the arguments for
why they believe the judge’s
opinion was wrong, said
Elizabeth Howard, an attor-
ney for ranchers who inter-
vened in the case.
“It’s hard to know what
ONDA’s plans are right
now,” Howard said, noting
that substantive arguments
will be made in the plain-
tiffs’ opening brief.
EO Media Group was
unable to reach Mac Lacy,
the attorney for the envi-
ronmental groups, for com-
ment.
“We seek to ensure that
the Forest Service collects
and appropriately responds
to habitat data and makes
every possible effort to pro-
tect bull trout habitat so this
fish isn’t wiped out from
these two rivers,” said Dan
Morse, ONDA’s conserva-
tion director, in an email.
The
environmental
plaintiffs had argued that
only 100 bull trout remain
in the Malheur and North
Fork Malheur rivers, which
should each support 2,000
of the fish.
The U.S. Forest Service
authorized grazing on seven
allotments spanning thou-
sands of acres even though
its own data showed that
“riparian management ob-
jectives” along the two riv-
ers weren’t being attained,
the plaintiffs argued.
By ignoring informa-
tion showing continued
degradation of bull trout
habitat, such as bank sta-
bility and water tempera-
ture, the agency violated
the National Forest Man-
agement Act, according to
plaintiffs.
The Forest Service coun-
tered that the groups were
“cherry-picking” problemat-
ic “hot spots” even as broad-
er conditions across the
landscape were improving.
Mosman and U.S. Mag-
istrate Judge Paul Papak,
who oversaw aspects of the
case, agreed with the gov-
ernment that bull trout hab-
itat could be monitored on
the “watershed,” rather than
“stream by stream,” and that
the plaintiffs hadn’t proven
grazing had caused the spe-
cies’ decline.
OWEB awards grant for conservation easement near Painted Hills
$3.1 million
invested in mid-
Columbia region
By George Plaven
EO Media Group
A nonprofit land trust based
in Walla Walla, Washington,
plans to buy a conservation
easement to protect 3 miles of
steelhead spawning habitat at
a ranch near the Painted Hills
in north-central Oregon.
Blue Mountain Land Trust
recently received a $1.42
million grant from the Ore-
gon Watershed Enhancement
Board to purchase the ease-
ment at Canyon Creek Ranch,
on Bear Creek in the John Day
Basin.
Jason Bulay, conservation
director for the land trust,
said the easement will ensure
Canyon Creek Ranch stays in
agricultural production, while
also protecting fish, wildlife,
upland sage and grassland
habitat.
“We all benefit, I think,
from having healthy popu-
lations of fish and wildlife,”
Bulay said. “Some of these are
very important species, from a
cultural and economic stand-
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point.”
In particular, Bulay said
they intend to preserve healthy
riparian habitat for mid-Co-
lumbia steelhead, which are
listed as a threatened species.
The easement includes 3.1
miles of steelhead habitat in
Bear Creek, adjacent to the
Painted Hills Unit in the John
Day Fossil Beds National
Monument.
Historically, Canyon Creek
Ranch was owned by a land
and cattle company which,
according to the project appli-
cation, caused extensive deg-
radation by overgrazing the
uplands and allowing cattle
unrestricted access to riparian
areas.
The current landowners,
Terrance and Peggy Long,
purchased the ranch in 2000.
Since then, they have worked
with multiple partners, includ-
ing OWEB, the USDA Natural
Resources Conservation Ser-
vice, Wheeler Soil and Water
Conservation District and the
Confederated Tribes of Warm
Springs to restore the property.
Together, they have cut
juniper on more than 665
acres and converted open ir-
rigation ditches to pipes. Last
year, the Wheeler SWCD
installed 21 artificial beaver
dam structures along the creek
to increase surface flows in
streams that otherwise dry up
during the summer. The tribes
have also committed an addi-
tional $500,000 for riparian
zone restoration through 2020.
Bulay said the land trust
was excited to work with such
committed landowners.
“We like it when we can
work with a landowner who
shares our goals, and perma-
nently protect that land,” he
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Heppner & Condon
mid-Columbia region, total-
ing $3.1 million. John Keith,
executive director of the Ore-
gon Association of Conserva-
tion Districts, applauded the
grants, saying they will help
to maintain the Oregon way
of life for generations to come.
“Oregon is unique for
many reasons, and one is the
commitment Oregonians have
made to conserve what’s left,”
Keith said.
Other projects funded by
OWEB include:
• $103,687 to the North
Fork John Day Watershed
Council for restoration work
on Granite Creek, reducing
sediment and lowering water
temperature flowing in to the
Middle Fork John Day River.
• $190,176 to the Confed-
erated Tribes of the Umatilla
Indian Reservation for restor-
ing the floodplain at Desola-
tion Creek south of Ukiah.
• $150,000 to the Morrow
Soil and Water Conservation
District to restore 240 acres of
wetlands along the Columbia
River between Umatilla and
Irrigon.
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said.
In the past, Blue Moun-
tain Land Trust served four
counties in southeast Wash-
ington, along with Umatilla
and Union counties in north-
east Oregon. The organization
opened a new John Day region
office in July 2017, expanding
into Grant, Gilliam, Wheeler
and Morrow counties.
“It’s a lot of the same re-
source concerns that we’ve
been dealing with here in
the Walla Walla area, as far
as the salmon and steelhead
spawning streams and the
wildlife habitat and the work-
ing lands,” Bulay said. “We
thought there were a lot of
great potential land projects
in the area, and landowners to
work with.”
Bulay said the land trust
also received $800,000 in
funding from OWEB to pur-
chase an easement at the
9,000-acre Bennett Ranch in
Baker County to protect sage
grouse habitat.
The Canyon Creek Ranch
easement is just one of 21 proj-
ects funded by OWEB in the
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