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!

Upcoming volunteer opporunities

We have several work parties planned for this Fall. The first will be Saturday, October 13th. We will be helping with the construction of the new Off Channel Wetland being added to the existing complex at the Thompson property on the Necanicum. We will be gathering Burreed wilding plugs, cutting bulrush thatch and helping to limb up conifers for placement in the complex. Bring waders,Gloves, Lunch and rain gear. This is a project that is being funded in part with TVTU dollars so come help out and see what we are spending our money on!

(see post below)

For carpooling, we will meet at the Imbrie road Fred Meyer, (22075 NW Imbrie Dr., Hillsboro, OR.), by the can return station at 8 AM. We will leave for the project at 8:15 AM. We can meet up at Klootchy Creek Park around 9:30 and go to Herb's from there. 

Our next work party will be Saturday, November 17th. We will be working at the North Coast Land Conservancies Thompson Creek property preparing for new beaver dams. For carpooling, we will meet at the Imbrie road Fred Meyer, (22075 NW Imbrie Dr., Hillsboro, OR.), by the can return station at 8 AM. We will leave for the project at 8:15 AM. We can meet up at Klootchy Creek Park around 9:30 and go to Thompson creek form there. Bring waders,Gloves, Lunch and rain gear.

Our final project for the year (actually our first of the new year) is an expanded tree collection effort. This year we have two sites to collect trees at. One is Northwest Flyfishing Outfitters at 10910 NE Halsey. The second is Royal Treatment Fly Fishing at 21570 Willamette Dr. in West Linn, Oregon.

We will be collecting trees on January 5th, 12th, and 19th, from 9 AM til 4 PM. We are looking for volunteers to take a shift of 2 to 3 hours each day. This was a pretty fun project last year and we all need an excuse to hang around a fly shop anyway, right? Let me know what days and hours you would like to come and help out.

Looking ahead to next Spring, We will be involved in placing all the trees we will collect. We intend to put more trees in more areas this time and will need more help to do that. I'll let you know when I have more info.

Be sure to let me know if you are interested in attending any of these fine events at TVTURestoration@gmail.com. 

Thanks for all your help.

Sincerely,

Michael Ellis

Conservation Director

Tualatin Valley Trout Unlimited

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

Placing the trees

from left, back row: Bill Robinson, Doug Ray, Walt Weber, Rod Lundberg, Byron Thompson, Bob May, David Illig, Tom Scoggins, Hunter Thompson, seated: Mike Gentry, Jim Ackerman, Ruger Thompson, Richard Hardy, Herb Thompson, Michael Ellis

On July 14th, TVTU members Mike Gentry, Rod Lundberg Doug Ray and David Illig, joined myself, my friend, Richard Hardy, and members of the Rainland Flycasters to place all the trees we have been collecting this Winter and Spring. The Rainland Flycasters were ably represented by Bill Robinson, Walt Weber, Bob May, Jim Ackerman and Tom Scoggins. The Thompson family contingent consisted of Herb Thompson, Byron Thompson, Hunter Thompson and Ruger Thompson. I apologize if I have inadvertently left anyone out.

A large pile of trees awaits placement

When we arrived, Walt Weber was already in the river taking a population survey of the area we would be covering with the trees. He counted about two dozen fish (fry and a few small cutthroat) in the area we were going to cover. 

we will construct the tree raft along the left bank

Walt Weber surveys the construction zone for fish

Walt Weber and Herb Thompson discuss the survey results

Mike and Rod got to work putting together the pontoon boats while everyone else put together a game plan.

Mike and Rod ready the pontoon fleet

Bob May talks over the anchoring method with the crew

We would tie the trees to a rope and use old milk jugs as floats. With this boom we would outline the slack water area we were going to cover with the trees. The pontoon boats would position and anchor the boom and then fill the middle in with trees. 

We tied the trees to a rope and used milk jugs for floats

The tree line grows

By the time Mike got in the water we were ready to start taking the rope across river.

Mike Gentry pushes off to begin building the tree corral

Mike is ready to grab the line 

Mike pulls the line across the river

Mike grabbed the end of the line and began to row. As more trees were added to the river the current started to have an effect.

more trees were added as the line was pulled across the river

Mike Gentry and Rod Lundberg pull the line down to the tie off point

                          we have the bottom of the line anchored and now are positioning the top end

It took a while to get the boom positioned correctly

                            

it's looking pretty good now

As we filled the boom, we used the current of the river to move the trees

Byron Thompson, Rod Lundgren and Mike Gentry corral and wrangle the trees into the structure

Byron Thompson brings more material to the structure

The completed structuture

Doug Ray points out some fish activity in the newly created habitat

The fish were waiting for this. They started inhabiting the trees as soon as they hit the water

The deed is done!

On Saturday, July 14th, members of the Rainland Flycasters and Tualatin Valley Trout Unlimited met to complete our Christmas for Coho project. We created a large raft of trees in a slack water area on the Necanicum River to provide food and cover for the little fishes. They started utilizing the trees even while we were placing them. It was incredible.

What happened to the christmas trees?

We hauled the trees we collected to an off channel wetland complex site on the Necanicum River. Byron Thompson and his family placed the trees into the complex as soon as they were delivered. Byron has been making underwater video of the action at the site. Here is a link to one of Byrons videos from August 2010 of activity at the site:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHwZv00EZAg&feature=g-all-u&context=G2d85f21F

Here you see some of the trees we collected placed in the off channel complex

(photo by Michael D. Ellis)

Here you see a christmas tree after being in the water for about a month

(photo by Byron Thompson)

Here you can see that the trees are being utilized by the Coho fry

(photo by Byron Thompson)

Tualatin Valley Trout Unllimited will be having a work party on March 11 (Sunday).  We will be helping to place woody debris, like christmas trees, in stream areas as well as planting some willow trees at the Neitzel Farm site. There should be newly emerged coho coming out of the gravel and seeking off channel habitat so we may get to see some of them. The young of the year pre-smolts will be on a diurnal schedule by then so we should get to see some of them too. Also, Mike Gentry, our President, will have just returned from a trip to Patagonia so there should be stories aplenty to share. 

You will definitely need rain gear, gloves and a lunch. You may want to bring waders too in case we anchor material in the water. We will rendezvous at our regular spot in Hillsboro (Sunset Fred Meyer, 22075 NW Imbrie Dr., Hillsboro, Oregon).  Meet by the can return area. We will leave by 8:15 am and will arrive at the work site around 9:45 or 10 am. For those who want to carpool/caravan from Portland. We can make a stop at Klootchy Creek park on the way to meet people already at the coast.

Please respond by e mail if you would like to attend to: tvturestoration@gmail.com

Michael Ellis

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.