Completion Form

2023

This project had multiple aspects from upland work to instream work. In April and May of 2023, we completed 2,843 acres of lop and scatter in Diamond Fork of mostly juniper trees that were 12" dbh and less. In June of 2023, we completed building 50 BDAs or man-made beaver dams in the Dairy Fork drainage.  
There was 1.4 miles of river enhanced in Diamond Fork between Red Ledges and Diamond Fork Campground between October 31 and November 8, 2022. A total of 32 structures or improvements were made within this stretch. Structures included; Rootwads, J-hook veins, PALS, narrowing and adjusting of the channel, boulder, clusters and general sloping of banks. Approximately 200 3 to 4 foot diameter boulders were brought in to make these improvements. Upon completion of the project, riparian seed was used to revegetate disturbed areas along the river banks.
The original proposal included some work on pond improvement at the lower end of Diamond Fork. This work was moved and included in a future URMCC/USFS/USFWS Project that will include extensive NEPA review and additional work in Lower Diamond Fork. Thus no work on improving the pond for Columbia Spotted Frog was completed in 2022.

This project is designed to benefit many fish and wildlife species and improve the overall health of the watershed. The lop and scatter work was designed to reduce fire risk and open the tree canopy to reduce competition with understory vegetation. This understory vegetation is critical for mule deer to survive the winter. This is a critical mule deer wintering area. 
The BDAs or beaver dam analogs are an extremely useful tool to improve not only stream habitat diversity for fish, but also to improve the riparian habitat which is important for many big game species such as mule deer. 
We are happy with the addition of all the new pools and fish habitat that was created with the 32 structure and modifications that were made in fall 2022. Some of these structures were compromised but still feel we have made significant improvements to the fish habitat in this stretch of Diamond Fork.  We postponed the restoration of the 1/4 acre wetland pond (Columbia spotted frog habitat) to future years to coincide with a larger wetland creation/restoration effort currently being planned by URMCC and UDWR.  Combining the two should reduce costs and the need for more than one NEPA.

Multiple partners (USFS, URMCC, UDWR, TU, USU) have been heavily involved in developing both a "Habitat Evaluation and Enhancement Planning" and "Instream Flow" resource management plans. Future efforts within the basin will be guided by the two documents (and subsequent restoration plans). Given the importance of the Diamond Fork drainage's sportfishing and native species (Columbia spotted frog, Utes Ladies Tress, Bonneville cutthroat trout) and recent federal funding to assist with recovery from natural disasters we anticipate it will receive significant management priority for a minimum of the next 10 years.
Maintaining these open areas in future years may be necessary. Cost effective treatment strategy of lop and scatter or managed fire techniques will be utilized.  Managed fires may also be utilized and grazing will continue in allotments.
It is worth noting that after the floods and extremely high flows of spring 2023 some of the structures were compromised, some remain intact, and some modifications may need to be made within this stretch to allow the creation of new pools and better fish habitat to remain. Additional work scheduled for 2024 further downstream was delayed or postponed until 2025 to allow the river to continue to settle or stop adjusting post floods of spring 2023. Any possible modification that are deemed necessary in this stretch will not be done until at least 2025. Again this is only if after the river settles we determine that it is necessary.

Chris Crockett

08/31/2023 12:52:34