[env-trinity] Trinity Journal- Fish finding their way to Weaverville creeks

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.trinityjournal.com/news/environment/article_bd5eb2aa-9f0e-11e1-9f36-0019bb30f31a.html 
Fish finding their way to Weaverville creeks
Trinity Journal staff | Posted: Wednesday, May 16, 2012 6:15 am
Although they face many challenges, anadromous fish can still be found in Weaverville's creeks.
"Some years we don't see any," said Mark Lancaster, program director for the Five Counties Salmonid Conservation Program (5C). "The more there are the more likely we are to see them, and this year we saw a lot in Sidney Gulch."
Sidney Gulch flows behind the U.S. Forest Service ranger station in Weaverville, past the post office and through Lee Fong Park before joining Weaver Creek.
"Weaver Creek, and its flatter tributary streams seem to be very important spawning and rearing habitat for the threatened coho salmon and the more common steelhead," Lancaster said.
West Weaver Creek has also been a productive stream for steelhead, he added.
Lancaster said increased use by fish of Sidney Gulch and West Weaver Creek may be due to bad conditions displacing fish from East Weaver Creek.
"The East Branch landslide of last March (2011) is dumping lots of sediment into East Weaver and smothering good spawning areas," Lancaster said. "Just when we are seeing good fish returns we lose habitat due to nature's processes."
"It just points to why we need to restore as many of these creeks as we can," he said, "because you never know when one is going to blink out."
Although the habitat eventually recovers from a landslide and downstream areas benefit from the added wood and gravels, Lancaster said the natural losses coming on top of habitat permanently removed by human development can overwhelm species.
The 5C program, Trinity County Resource Conservation District, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management Trinity River Restoration Program and other organizations are pursuing restoration projects in Weaver Creek and surrounding tributary streams.
In Sidney Gulch there are three projects in the planning stages. Within Lee Fong Park engineers and hydrologists are looking at opening the floodplain up and giving the creek more room to meander. Sidney Gulch was moved and straightened in the past to accommodate development, and the open space in Lee Fong Park is one of the few places that a more natural channel can be restored. That design team plans to present some ideas to the Park and Recreation District in June with a goal to have a complete design done this year. If that happens an environmental review will be completed next year and construction could begin in 2014 or 2015.
Upstream in the Forest Service compound a similar design team will be looking at the feasibility of modifying the channel to allow fish to move upstream. Currently the water moves too fast and is too shallow within the concrete channel for most fish to get upstream. Concrete resting structures added to the channel in 2005 help, but still most fish can not make it above the concrete channel. Even farther up, a culvert with a drop on the downstream side is a complete migration barrier that is being evaluated to be removed at Bally View Loop.
Even as these three projects are being addressed the dying tree cover between Oregon Street and Forest Avenue presents a problem for fish and the County Department of Transportation. The loss of canopy cover will increase sunlight and heat into the creek, which is already too warm in summer. For the road crews trees present a hazard to parked cars and pedestrians.
Farther upstream the 5C with Trinity County is hoping to work with Caltrans to address its culverts on both Sidney Gulch and Garden Gulch. The county is concerned with flooding in the Courthouse because the undersized culvert backwaters and the banks have overflowed to the basement of the Courthouse. Garden Gulch is also yielding a large quantity of sediment.
"It is not apparent to us why Garden Gulch, which did not burn in the Oregon Fire, has in the past year started producing so much sediment," said fisheries biologist Eric Wiseman of the Forest Service. "Sidney Gulch should be more turbid than Garden Gulch but we watch both streams from our office and Garden is much more turbid on the same storms."
Lancaster agreed, noting that residents on Barbara Avenue have asked him to look into the sudden and dramatic increase in sediment.
"We have found some sources" Lancaster said noting that natural channel erosion, small landslides and trees falling in the creek are contributing fine red clay, but failed trail crossings, new roads and pads, and grading all seem to be contributing sediment.
The project planned for East Weaver Creek upstream of the confluence with West Weaver at Mill Street is a fish habitat improvement project that will also protect a major sewer line that crosses the stream. The project will install a series of log and rock ribbons across the stream to encourage natural channel rebuilding over the sewer line, while increasing the number of pools and hiding places for fish. A steep and eroding stream bank will also be laid back and replanted with willows intermixed with rock slope protection to prevent it eroding back farther and exposing more of the pipeline. The work is expected to be done in early fall when the stream is at its lowest levels.
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