The four new projects involve removing vegetation from the banks of the Trinity River near Canyon Creek, knocking down the streamside berm and lowering the flood plain. Some backwater channels and channels to accommodate high water will also be formed in the approximately 6 miles between Junction City and Helena.

”We’re taking the handcuffs off the river,” said program senior scientist Rod Wittler. “We’re allowing it to be a river again.”

Since the Lewiston Dam and diversion project was completed in the 1960s, the vast majority of the upper watershed’s water has been sent to the Sacramento River, where it’s pumped to Central Valley farms. A 2000 decision signed by former U.S. Interior Department Secretary Bruce Babbitt ordered roughly half the water to flow down the river to aid its ailing fishery.

The Hoopa Valley Tribe successfully fought off irrigators’ legal challenges to that decision, and work on the river began in full swing last year.

During wet years, the program intends to use high flows -- in combination with mechanically prepared areas -- to reshape the river. The goal is to create more rearing habitat, Wittler said, areas where young salmon can grow before migrating to the Klamath River and out to sea.

There will be effects on species like turtles, frogs and birds that shelter or nest in the streamside vegetation the program will remove. But the change is likely to be temporary, Wittler said. The projects are being done in phases, and riparian vegetation will be replanted farther from the river channel, he said.

This year’s Hocker Flat project has gone more quickly than expected, Wittler said, with the contractor able to use more efficient equipment than was first believed necessary. The lessons learned from that $800,000 effort may help drop costs for the Canyon Creek projects, which are estimated to be around $1.3 million altogether.

Mike Orcutt, senior biologist with the Hoopa Tribe, said he’s concerned that the science and monitoring elements of the projects won’t be fully funded in an era of tight budgets.

”Our general sense is that a lot of the construction was taking a higher priority, and that may be all right,” Orcutt said. “But if we lose some of the monitoring programs ... where’s the money going to come from?”

A notice of preparation for a draft environmental impact report and environmental assessment for the projects has been filed for the projects at Conner Creek, Valdor Gulch, Elk Horn and Pear Tree.

A scoping meeting will be held on Oct. 20 at 6:30 p.m. at the Junction City Community Hall, 71 Dutch Creek Road.

Comments must be received by Nov. 7, and should be sent to Brandt Gutermuth, Trinity River Restoration Program, P.O. Box 1300, Weaverville, CA 96093, or e-mailed to bgutermuth@mp.usbr.gov. For further information or to receive a copy of the NOP, contact Gutermuth at (530) 623-1806, or Dean Prat at (707) 576-2801.

For more information, go to http://www.trrp.net/.