North Coast Site Tour part 3

At the Circle Creek Off Channel Wetland Complex

After visiting Neitzel Farms, we proceeded on to the North Coast Land Conservancy's Circle Creek site. Our chapter provided funds, through a Trout Unlimited Embrace a Stream grant, to design, engineer and and permit this work.  

North Coast Site Tour part 2

Next we went to Neitzel Farms, another Off Channel Wetland Complex (OCWC) that TVTU helped to build and plant. 

At Neitzel Farms, from left: Les Neitzel, Mike Coddington, Robert Williams, Doug Ray, Greg Fritts, Jon Pampush, Erle Norman

North Coast Site Tour

On Wednesday, October 23rd, 7 members of the Tualatin Valley chapter of Trout Unlimited met for a tour of the projects we have been involved in over the years. In attendance were Erle Norman, Jon Pampush, Greg Fritts, Mike Coddington, Robert Williams, Michael Ellis, and the leader of the tour, Doug Ray.

Cedars, bull rushes and sedges getting established

Wet and Rewarding

By Jeff Price

TVTU members Don Kaster, Mike Coddington, Jeff Price and Derek Yost [pictured L-R] persevered through recent weekend coastal rains to help about 12 other intrepid souls from the North Coast Land Conservancy at the recent habitat restoration project at Thompson Creek outside Seaside. Donning rain gear and mucking boots the group waded out into the Stanley Lake tidal flat to establish native sedge grasses and plant willow shoots. The purpose of the project is to rid the areas of non-native growth, provide/expand smolt rearing habitat, and encourage beaver use to create back channel habitat.

Derek and Jeff met in Hillsboro to carpool to Seaside – unfortunately, through a change of Don’s plans, he was missed [apologies Don!] but was dedicated enough to continue his journey solo to assist with the Project. Mike resides in Seaside and met them at the site. Weather was not a deterrent for the group who spent around 4 hours placing sedge grasses in pre-drilled holes in the marsh. It is a good thing these native plants appreciate moist soil because that is certainly what they got! When the grass pile ran out we all rallied around a pile of about 1000 willow shoots – some folks pegged the ground while other followed behind placing the shoots in the holes and covering them up. The willows are hardy enough to establish themselves as long as the placed shoots are cut fresh. After perhaps 750 willows had been placed everyone broke for lunch and the leaders decided we needed to leave some work for a scheduled afternoon crew of school kids. So as the bus rolled in the morning went on our ways with a hearty thank you.

Relative to other Oregon winter activities this was on par with many – be prepared with appropriate clothes and all is good [after all - if we didn’t do it in the rain when would we do it in Oregon?]. The added benefit was being able to play in the mud for a few hours to benefit our coastal fish habitat! After a quick bite we toured the Thompson Creek work area and looked in on the previous blackberry and willow efforts there – all appeared in place with the beavers maintaining and enlarging their dam. The blackberries have been held at bay in the areas previously cleared at TVTU projects past – so extra kudos to that hardy group.

Not the easiest work to be had but rewarding by all accounts – and it goes more smoothly and quickly with more participants! Additionally, meeting new people with similar interests is always nice. If you wish to be a part of a restoration project in the future and want to volunteer your time please contact Michael at tvturestoration.com to be placed on the mailing list - as Derek stated “everyone’s fish karma could use a boost now and again!”. Thanks again to all who helped on November 17. Hope to see you at a project soon!

Progress report on the Thompson off channel wetland project

 Photos and text by Douglas Ray

August 23rd, 2012:

Please find attached a number of photos from today.

Herb is now in his OCWC “Yoda mode “where he more or less levitates and is in deep zen mode while digging, digging, digging and more digging! Kind of a habitat restoration karma aura field where nothing else matters to him except creating the highest function salmonid habitat possible!

It is accurate to say that with him thinking about this for multiple years and using all he/we have learned with the other 2 OCWC he has there ( this as you know has the ultimate goal to expand improve and connect the two not separated OCWC habitats) and Neitzel in the logistics/ sequencing for construction to maximize efficiencies and make the most diverse highest function habitat humanly possible.

 The proximity of the laminar ground water was as close or closer than I had expected, for those who came down for the Course woody material mass placement and walked the proposed expansion site on the tour.

We have significant lateral ground water flow having ONLY removed the upper silts and alluvial cobble to the now as you see in the attached photos the grade of pure alluvial cobble rocks and wood that Herb can now have the excavator walk and sit on without generating turbidity  then begin to excavate a diversity of depths, slopes, contours, and terraces to completely max out the potential micro elevations and establish the very best balance of deep to medium to shallow aquatic habitat depths to help separate by space and depth fry and presmolts in the late spring when there is predation interactions, and allow the greatest possible diversity of elevations for aquatic emergent algae and bio film assemblages for primary production.

Diversity does matter fry and parr use shallow habitats presmolts as they mature and prepare to leave for the ocean concentrate in the deepest areas ( that makes sense after all they are preparing to live in the ocean!) This project provides for all stages of fresh water life history requirements and considers predation interactions between age classes in time and space.

Thank you again for the generous support to provide funding for the diesel, we just today pumped in another 81 gallons of fuel that gives Herb 3 long days of excavating and some for the dump truck as well.

We have immediate need for a restoration work party to collect nearby bulrush seed heads and thatch to use as Best management practices erosion control and to initiate the fringing wetland cells throughout the new OCWC.

Within the week Herb will have completed all the final excavation to create deep pools and diverse depths and place wood and finish the edge of the area in the attached pictures.

I am asking with appreciation in advance, for any TU or Rainlander volunteers to come out for half a day to help collect transport and spread wetland seed and thatch as the final finish to this part of the complex as he moves south as far as he can get until the fall rains begin.

Attached are two pictures of how it was used  @ Neitzel farm project

The other pictures are from today but this area will be fully built out and need treatment as soon as next weekend.

Thank you all advance please share as you see fit with TU chapter and Rainlander club members to see the progress of their incredible generous but fantastic use of their conservation investment to support salmonids and habitat in the Necanicum watershed!

August 31, 2012:

 FYI this is yesterday the nearly complete dig out of the 1st of 3 large

OCWC cells Herb is building on to number 2 this weekend!!7' to 12" with

super diversity of depths all over intentional to max depth diversity for

habitat diversity. The laminar water input is cold enough to give you a

headache if you jumped I will get temps this weekend but likely the classic

49 F ground water temp cold enough to get your attention and so important to

have manifested to provide summer thermal refugia when the mainstem is going

to the mid 60's...

Cheers,

Doug

Coho habitat enhancement project update

Photos and text by Michael Ellis
TVTU Conservation Director





On Friday, June 8th, TVTU members Jeff Price, Mark and Janet Rogers, and Michael Ellis Met at Mckenzie Farms Headquarters by Colton, Oregon to pick up over 100 culled christmas trees.

All were in the 4 to 6 ft. Range. Mckenzie Farms is one of the largest growers of high quality christmas trees in Oregon.

They had a surprise for us when we arrived. There was a crew ready to load our vehicles! 

Those guys were good. They were really able to load trees. I was envious of their packing ability. 

We were loaded up in less than 1/2 hour and we all left for our respective homes.

Saturday morning we got up early and drove to Seaside where we met TVTU members Doug Ray, Mike Coddington and Byron Thompson to drop off the trees at the work site. 

from left: Jeff Price, Doug Ray, Mike Coddington, and Byron Thompson unload the U Haul truck

Our volunteers, from left: 

Janet Rogers, Mark Rogers, Doug Ray, Byron Thompson, Jeff Price, and Mike Coddington

We then headed up to Longview Timber land to harvest more trees for the habitat project. 

Doug and Byron handled the chainsaw duty while the rest of us cut with handsaws and loaded the trucks and trailers. 

Jeff looks for more trees to cut

Byron had a trailer that appeared to be made from a 20 yard dumpster. It was huge.

 In about an hour we had cut about all the material our trucks and trailers could hold so we headed back to add to the pile.

back at the Thompson property ready to unload

We collected lots of trees for habitat

Mark and Janet begin unloading their trailer

Mike starts unloading his pickup

Mike and Jeff next to the load from Mike's truck

now we start in on Byron's trailer

The pile has grown a lot today!

After unloading we walked around the Thompson property and looked at the wetland area Tualatin Valley Trout Unlimited is helping to complete. (see above photo)

Doug explains to the volunteers how and where we will be placing the trees we collected

 Byron also showed us some incredible video he has been shooting documenting the utilization of the wetland area as well as the christmas trees by Coho salmon young. These efforts are really paying off. If you would like to see some of Byrons video, check out his facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/cohosanctuary . There are a few u tube videos, but his facebook page is the motherlode.

We are going to be helping place all this material in a large slack water pool on the Necanicum Saturday July 14. This pool is one of the best spots for juvenile fish on the river during the summer and the addition of the cover and food our tree rafts will provide will let them grow fat and sassy for heading out to sea! This should be a very interesting project to participate in. If you would like to help out with this project, let me know by e mail at tvturestoration@gmail.com .

Our dedicated volunteers, from left:

Michael Ellis, Mark Rogers, Janet Rogers, Byron Thompson, Jeff Price, Doug Ray, Mike Coddington

Thank you all for your help

Sincerely,

Michael Ellis

TVTU Conservation Director

Last chance to drop off your tree for Ecocycling

Mike Gentry and Michael Ellis await the first tree

Saturday, Jan. 7th, we collected used christmas trees at Northwest Flyfishing Outfitters, located at NE 108th and Halsey. We will be taking these trees down to the coast for placement on the Necanicum system.

Alan Moore, right, helps another tree find a home on the coast

A big thank you goes to TVTU volunteers, Mike Gentry, Ron Reinebach, Terry Turner and Alan Moore, who helped staff and make this project happen.  An even bigger thank you goes to Jack Hagen and the folks at Northwest Flyfishing Outfitters for allowing us to use their store as a drop site. Be sure to let them know you appreciate their help the next time you are in their store. Thanks are also due to Cassandra Profita at the OPB Ecotrope blog for helping us get the word out.. Many of the folks dropping off trees heard about this through OPB or the Ecotrope blog.

Terry Turner and Ron Reinebach with a gradually filling trailer of Xmas trees

We will be collecting trees again next Saturday, January 14th, at Northwest Flyfishing Outfitters from 10 am to 4 pm, so if you haven't gotten rid of your tree yet or know someone who hasn't, here is your last chance! Also, I am the only person who has volunteered for next Saturday and could use some company! If you have the time, volunteer to staff the site for an hour or so next Saturday. My e mail is tvturestoration@gmail.com.

These trees will be fish habitat by Monday night!

There is a lot of interest in using ex christmas trees in this way and the response this year was good enough that we will be expanding our pick up sites and trying to get a lot more trees next year. If you would like to help out, let me know (tvturestoration@gmail.com). We would like to have at least one site on the west side of town in addition to an eastside dropoff and will be needing volunteers to staff the sites as well as volunteer co-ordinators to find sites, co-ordinate volunteers, and help arrange for delivery to the coast.

ADDENDUM: Jan. 9, 2012

The Christmas trees have all been placed in an off channel habitat area on the Necanicum River. There they will begin to break down both chemically and through biological processes. Biofilm will begin to grow on the needles and provide food for micro and macro organisms, allowing the Coho fry to have a ready source of food in addition to the cover the Christmas trees provide.