Completion Form

2020

The project was completed essentially as planned. Summary of the project implementation:

(1) Large woody debris and rock structures - Private contractors hauled rock material to the project area. The UDWR Heavy Equipment Crew operated the necessary heavy equipment (e.g., excavator and front-end loader) to install large woody debris and rock structures in the stream and along banks. The structures added cover for fish, helped address problems associated with elevated rates of streambank erosion (e.g., recruitment of fine sediment or high total phosphorous loads), and protected cattle crossing structures to manage livestock grazing.

(2) Streambank shaping and sloping - All bare, vertical, eroding banks were shaped and sloped back to at least a 2:1 slope in a manner intended to promote reconnection of the river with the floodplain and help address streambank erosion problems. The stream channel slope, pattern, and location was not changed. Work only occurred on existing stream banks. The stream was narrowed and deepened in some locations, but cross-sectional area of the channel was maintained.

(3) Riparian seeding and planting - All disturbed ground and areas lacking adequate riparian vegetation were seeded with a native grass mixture and a conservation corps work crew was hired to plant willow cuttings and bare root riparian trees and shrubs (e.g., water birch, cottonwood, red-osier dogwood, chokecherry, elderberry and golden current) to add cover and address streambank erosion problems.

(4) Livestock management - The stream corridor encompassing the project area on private land was fenced in the summer of 2016 to manage livestock grazing, which should also help to protect large woody debris structures, riparian vegetation, and streambanks over the long-term. Livestock grazing on the private land will not occur within riparian areas for five years. Thereafter, livestock grazing within riparian areas would occur at an intensity, duration, timing, and season such that woody riparian vegetation is not degraded or lost due to grazing by livestock (e.g., short duration, high intensity during spring). A small section of new fence was constructed and a longer section of old fence rebuilt to exclude livestock from the downstream portion of BLM property.

(5) Retreating Russian olive and tamarisk - The entire area where Russian olive and tamarisk has been removed over the past several years was retreated by hand application of herbicide to any newly sprouting Russian olive and tamarisk.

The bulk of project implementation would occurred in the spring of 2019, but additional small amounts of work were completed throughout the entire project time period (e.g., maintenance on fence/stream crossings after high flows in the early summer of 2019).

Nic Braithwaite

08/24/2020 08:27:43