Project Details

The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR), Southeastern Region staff are seeking a drainage-scale stream habitat assessment in the Huntington Creek drainage. Huntington Creek is a former Blue Ribbon fishery that was devastated by fire in 2012. The Seeley fire burned large portions of the watershed, leading to degraded stream habitat conditions and the extirpation of fish from much of the stream. Restocking efforts (Brown Trout and Colorado River Cutthroat Trout) have taken place since 2014; however, little to no natural reproduction has been observed and the fishery is maintained by continued stocking. Consequently, the UDWR would like to use a drainage-scale habitat evaluation to identify limiting factors responsible for poor natural recruitment to the fishery. Of particular interest to managers are quantifying the current availability of spawning substrates to stocked fishes and whether barriers to movement may be preventing fish from moving into suitable spawning reaches. The completed habitat assessment will guide future trout management work in Huntington Creek.

Provide evidence about the nature of the problem and the need to address it. Identify the significance of the problem using a variety of data sources. For example, if a habitat restoration project is being proposed to benefit greater sage-grouse, describe the existing plant community characteristics that limit habitat value for greater sage-grouse and identify the changes needed for habitat improvement.

Provide an overall goal for the project and then provide clear, specific and measurable objectives (outcomes) to be accomplished by the proposed actions. If possible, tie to one or more of the public benefits UWRI is providing.

LOCATION: Justify the proposed location of this project over other areas, include publicly scrutinized planning/recovery documents that list this area as a priority, remote sensing modeling that show this area is a good candidate for restoration, wildlife migration information and other data that help justify this project's location.

TIMING: Justify why this project should be implemented at this time. For example, Is the project area at risk of crossing an ecological or other threshold wherein future restoration would become more difficult, cost prohibitive, or even impossible.

State of Utah Resource Management Plan.  This plan specifically talks about maintaining fisheries and riparian areas.  This project will help to achieve the following objectives *The State will seek to protect, conserve, and improve Utah's fish and aquatic wildlife and the habitats upon which they depend.  *The State will seek to provide for the varied demands of fish and aquatic wildlife recreationists.  *The State supports ensuring the persistence of the diversity of native fish and aquatic wildlife in Utah while at the same time providing excellent opportunities for anglers and other recreationists.  *Encourage the use of flood structures, dams, catch basins, gully plugs, and reseeding of grass ways to help reduce erosion during and after storm events.  *The State supports implementing active management and restoration projects on federal lands to restore sinuosity, vegetation, and to re-seed/revegetate burn areas as soon as possible post-fire to mitigate sedimentation in streams and riparian areas *Active management should be used to improve and enhance riparian resources to provide for appropriate physical, biological, and chemical function.  *Prioritize and manage riparian areas to attain desired future conditions for riparian related resources (e.g. fishery habitat, water quality, wildlife and livestock forage, and soil stability). *The State supports the use of structural and non-structural improvements in unstable water courses to restore riparian areas properly functioning/desired future conditions.  *The State will engage with federal land manage agencies to support active management of healthy riparian areas on federal land.

List management plans where this project will address an objective or strategy in the plan. Describe how the project area overlaps the objective or strategy in the plan and the relevance of the project to the successful implementation of those plans. It is best to provide this information in a list format with the description immediately following the plan objective or strategy.

If applicable, detail how the proposed project will significantly reduce the risk of fuel loading and/or continuity of hazardous fuels including the use of fire-wise species in re-seeding operations. Describe the value of any features being protected by reducing the risk of fire. Values may include; communities at risk, permanent infrastructure, municipal watersheds, campgrounds, critical wildlife habitat, etc. Include the size of the area where fuels are being reduced and the distance from the feature(s) at risk.

Describe how the project has the potential to improve water quality and/or increase water quantity, both over the short and long term. Address run-off, erosion, soil infiltration, and flooding, if applicable.

Description of efforts, both completed and planned, to bring the proposed action into compliance with any and all cultural resource, NEPA, ESA, etc. requirements. If compliance is not required enter "not applicable" and explain why not it is not required.

Describe the actions, activities, tasks to be implemented as part of the proposed project; how these activities will be carried out, equipment to be used, when, and by whom.

Describe plans to monitor for project success and achievement of stated objectives. Include details on type of monitoring (vegetation, wildlife, etc.), schedule, assignments and how the results of these monitoring efforts will be reported and/or uploaded to this project page. If needed, upload detailed plans in the "attachments" section.

List any and all partners (agencies, organizations, NGO's, private landowners) that support the proposal and/or have been contacted and included in the planning and design of the proposed project. Describe efforts to gather input and include these agencies, landowners, permitees, sportsman groups, researchers, etc. that may be interested/affected by the proposed project. Partners do not have to provide funding or in-kind services to a project to be listed.

Detail future methods or techniques (including administrative actions) that will be implemented to help in accomplishing the stated objectives and to insure the long term success/stability of the proposed project. This may include: post-treatment grazing rest and/or management plans/changes, wildlife herd/species management plan changes, ranch plans, conservation easements or other permanent protection plans, resource management plans, forest plans, etc.

Potential for the proposed action to improve quality or quantity of sustainable uses such as grazing, timber harvest, biomass utilization, recreation, etc. Grazing improvements may include actions to improve forage availability and/or distribution of livestock.