Instream: WaterWatch-Led Fish Barrier Removal Project Wins Award

Oct. 24, 2024

By Jim McCarthy

We’re thrilled and honored to announce the WaterWatch-led Takelma Creek Barrier Removal Project, completed in 2023, has won the 2024 Western District American Fisheries Society Award of Excellence in Riparian Management.

This multi-faceted project is primarily located on Siskiyou Field Institute property in the Illinois River subbasin of the Rogue River. It removed a fish-blocking 13-foot high, 70-foot wide concrete diversion dam on the 2019 Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) Statewide Fish Passage Barrier Priority List, replaced the dam’s water diversion with a screened and metered gravity diversion, repaired the landowner’s leaky water delivery pipe, replaced a fish-blocking county culvert on the Illinois River Road, and removed two fish-blocking logging road culverts.

Altogether, the project has opened access to approximately 3.5 miles of formerly blocked spawning and rearing habitat in Takelma Creek, while improving the transportation and water supply infrastructure in rural Josephine County. Perhaps best of all, federal biologists have already documented Coho salmon returning to the habitat above the former dam site. In addition to Coho, Takelma Creek provides spawning and rearing habitat for winter steelhead and cutthroat trout.

This project represents one of the many restoration projects throughout Oregon accelerated in recent years thanks to ODFW grants awarded out of the $8 million in Drought Funds appropriated to fish passage improvement projects during the 2022 legislative session.

Other project partners include the Bureau of Land Management, Rogue Basin Partnership, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, and PacifiCorp. River Design Group provided survey, design, and construction oversight services. Grants Pass-based stream restoration contractors Dietrich Construction, LLC conducted all structural demolition, construction, repair, and restoration work.

Congratulations to our whole team for this well-deserved award!

Banner photo of Takelma Creek by Jim McCarthy. This article originally appeared as a Water Brief in the fall 2024 issue of WaterWatch of Oregon’s Instream newsletter.