Oct. 31, 2024
A year has passed since WaterWatch completed a priority fish barrier removal project on Takelma Creek in the Illinois River subbasin of the Rogue, and positive responses continue to pour in from both the local salmon population and the region’s scientific community.
The multi-faceted Takelma project opened access to 3.5 miles of blocked spawning and rearing habitat with the removal of a 13-foot-high, 70-foot-wide concrete diversion dam without a fish ladder, replacement of the dam’s water diversion with a screened and metered gravity diversion, successful repairs on the landowner’s leaky water delivery pipe, replacement of a fish-blocking county culvert on Illinois River Road, and the removal of two fish-blocking logging road culverts upstream.
Since its completion, the project has won the 2024 Western District American Fisheries Society Award of Excellence in Riparian Management. Even better, this summer federal biologists documented threatened Coho salmon upstream of the former dam site for the first time.
For decades, ending the harm caused by obsolete barriers that delay, injure, and kill Oregon’s prized fish runs has been a major part of WaterWatch’s work to restore the Rogue’s natural abundance and resiliency. Now, WaterWatch is working faster than ever to improve fish passage to high elevation cold water habitat and bolster native Rogue fish populations against the growing impacts of climate change. No single river restoration action provides a bigger return on investment than barrier removal.
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There’s more about our Takelma project and WaterWatch’s other barrier removal successes elsewhere on our website and in this Rogue Valley Times article.
Banner photo courtesy of River Design Group, footer photo of Takelma Creek above former dam site by Jim McCarthy.
