May 29, 2006
By STEVE KADEL
H&N Staff Writer
SPRAGUE RIVER VALLEY - A dozen stream doctors checked on their patient Friday
and found encouraging signs of life.
Willows, sedges and irises grow in the
channel of a Sprague River tributary where several years earlier there was
only bare dirt. The change means the waterway, damaged by cattle grazing as
well as logging near its banks, is returning to health.
Members of the Klamath Basin Ecosystem Foundation toured the privately owned
area with representatives from Oregon and California fish and wildlife
agencies.
The habitat comeback started several years ago when a barbed wire fence was
built to keep cattle away from the stream. Foundation members have taken
photos to show the difference in water levels and vegetation over time.
“We're trying to fix the hydrology on this stream,” said Mike Connelly,
the foundation's executive director.
Few fish, if any, pass through the stream. That's a big difference from a time
long ago when it meandered through a huge meadow capable of storing large
amounts of water.
Wayne Elmore said potential storage capability makes restoration important.
“How do I sell this to the public? Because of the thing everybody is after - water. Plants slow down the water and give us flows in August where before it just ran to the ocean,” he said.
Elmore said water is now trapped in
stream sediment 2 feet deep. That wasn't the case 50 years ago, he said, and
the change provides diverse vegetation that supports a variety of wildlife.
“There have to be plants that animals like to eat to hold the ecosystem
together,” Elmore said. “Water drives everything.”
The foundation is doing other restoration projects in the valley, too. One of
them is on Greg Bulkley's property near the confluence of Five Mile Creek and
the Sprague River.
The nonprofit group has received
thousands of dollars in grants to build riparian fencing, fix cutbanks and do
other work. Bulkley, who has cattle on his acreage, said ranchers are
collaborating with foundation members - a markedly different approach than has
traditionally existed between the industry and groups that include some
environmentalists.
“An extraordinary thing is happening,” Bulkley said. “The ranchers are
cautiously working with these people. There's a mutual trust.”
Both camps want healthier streams and
watersheds, he said.
Josh Egenolf, manager of the foundation's project on the Sprague tributary,
said a gentle touch usually yields the best results.
Plans call for putting rocks in some
spots along the stream to reduce erosion and spread of cutbanks. Mostly,
though, the land will heal itself over time.
“It's not so much hastening recovery as halting the degradation,” Egenolf
said of the foundation's role. “We like to say ‘Let the original architect
do it.'
“Nature is always seeking an
equilibrium. That's what is happening here.”