Project Details

During the summer/fall of 2018 the Bald Mountain/Pole Canyon fire burned approximately 125,000 acres within the Central Region.  Significant portions of both the Lower and Middle Diamond Fork River and drainage, and their associated upland and riparian vegetation, were impacted. Sediment plumes and high flows have resulted in several documented fish kills and habitat degradation.  In addition historical flows of 400-600 cfs were common during the summer months to deliver irrigation water down Diamond Fork until approximately 2006 when those high flows were put into a pipeline. These high flows resulted in a very straight and simple, featureless river lacking the necessary fish habitat, especially pools, required to sustain a healthy fish population. Over the past 15 years Diamond Fork has been settling into a "new river" but has not been able to develop those necessary habitats naturally. The habitat improvements we are proposing will help immediately develop essential pool and more complex habitats required for the fish populations to be self-sustaining and rebound from negative fire impacts.
The fires also burned a lot of the shrub habitat that is important for mule deer during the winter. We are proposing to do the cultural clearance this year so that the USFS can do the necessary NEPA to allow us to seed and plant shrub and forb seedlings to restore this important big game habitat.

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.

1.  Install 15-20 boulder clusters consisting of 2-3 large diameter boulders (1500-2000 lbs each) to areas of low habitat complexity to enhance fisheries habitat and holding areas.  Structures may be used in conjunction with root wads and J-hook vanes. 
2.  Install 2-5 root wads to deflect water from back and scour deep pools for fish habitat.
3.  Install 3-5 grade control structures made of rock to create pools and maintain streambed elevation.
4.  Install 8-10 rock vanes and/or J-hook vanes to redirect the water energy away from vulnerable banks, reduce near shore stress, and enhance habitat complexity.
5.  Place woody veg/debris along shoreline and secure with boulders to provide complexity and narrow channel width. These structures in 1-5 will be installed in sections 17, 19 and 22 (see Diamond Fork Aquatic Habitat Evaluation and Enhancement Planning.  October 2018 in Images/Documents).
6.  Establish ground level photo point monitoring sites, monitor every 6-12 months (Fall 2023-Winter 2025).
7.  Seed any riparian or upland areas disturbed by installation of rock vanes, or rock clusters, root wads and heavy equipment use.
8.  Obtain NEPA/EA/CX from Forest Service (Summer 2023) and Arch. Clearance from UDWR.  
9.  Stream Alteration Permit (Summer 2023).
10. Complete necessary cultural and NEPA clearances to restore shrub species to the landscape.

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.

Stream restoration of the lower portions of Diamond Fork to improve habitat complexity and especially the development of pool habitats for fish lies within the WRI focus areas and is supported by numerous management documents including the following.

Diamond Fork Aquatic Habitat Evaluation and Enhancement Planning.  October 2018.  Allred Restoration, Bio-West, and URMCC.  123 pages.

Diamond Fork Area Assessment.  2000.  A cooperative project between URMCC and the U.S. Forest Service.  175 pages.

Lower Diamond Fork Restoration Plan.  2008.

Land and Resource Management Plan-Uinta National Forest.  2001.  USDA Forest Service. -Plan sites management of riparian areas (pg 2.2), management of aquatic species (pg 2.3), wildlife (pg 2.5), and vegetation (pg 2.5).

Utah County RMP:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Cn80Wzst8eoa0o_BqoTBHOPfPm8M6MIe

Document cites need and County support for: Fire Management (p31) Fisheries (p35) Floodplains and River Terraces (p39) Recreation and Tourism (p72) Riparian Areas (p75) Threatened, Endangered, & Sensitive Species (p78) Water Quality and Hydrology (p81) Wetlands (p90)

2015.  Utah Wildlife Action Plan 2015-2025.  Project goals address major threats including "fire and fire suppression", "channel downcutting", "improper sediment balance", etc. and addresses threats to multiple WAP species, both aquatic and terrestrial.

RANGE-WIDE CONSERVATION AGREEMENT AND STRATEGY FOR BONNEVILLE CUTTHROAT TROUT (Oncorhynchus clarki utah). Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Publication Number 00-19, Salt Lake City, UT.
-Diamond Fork and tributaries are current (5th Water) or future potential (DiaFrk) BCT population centers.

CONSERVATION AGREEMENT AND STRATEGY FOR COLUMBIA SPOTTED FROG (RANA LUTEIVENTRIS) IN THE STATE OF UTAH. Publication Number 06-01
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Salt Lake City, Utah.
-Ponds in Lower Diamond Fork house a recently rediscovered breeding population of CSF.

Statewide Mule Deer Management Plan
-Improve winter ranges

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.

Several experts in range and fire science have identified the role healthy riparian systems play in wildfire dynamics by serving as fire breaks, safety zones, water sources, and burn out points.  Numerous authors cite similar observations. Proposed practices will improve the riparian zone in the Diamond Fork watershed in the identified river sections.

Workshop on the multiple influences of riparian ecosystems on fires in western forest landscapes.  Summary Report  2001.  Kauffman, J.B.

Fuels have been accumulating over the years due to human cultural practices and changing climatic conditions. The Utah Wildfire Risk Assessment Portal (UWRAP) designates this area as a Moderate and a few areas in Moderate-High Risk for wildfire (Utah Division of Fire, Forestry and State Lands The Oregon Department of Forestry completed this assessment on behalf of the Council of Western State Foresters with funding from the USDA Forest Service). 
Wildland urban interface areas are located around Little Diamond, Diamond Campground, and scattered private homes and summer cabins off Diamond Fork Road (#029) in Wanrhodes and Little Diamond areas.  The Central Utah Project (CUP) also has infrastructure to be protected and there are two existing utility corridors within this management area. Utah Power and Light occupies the corridor along Highway 6 and Deseret Generation and Transmission occupies the corridor along the eastern edge of the management area boundary. The southwestern portion of the management area contains a large amount of private land, specifically the Wanrhodes Basin, comprising about a tenth of the entire management area. The Bureau of Reclamation has a withdrawal in the bottom of the Diamond Fork drainage to develop and maintain the water transmission pipeline.

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.

There are two current TMDL's that are impacted by this project. Spanish Fork River has one and Utah Lake has another. This project will not directly but will potentially move the system towards attainment and will prevent further degradation cause by wildfire effects.

The project will also directly benefit water quality in several ways, including the following:

1.	Prevent channel downcutting and promote aggradation of sediments in entrained reaches.
2.	Reduce sedimentation delivered further downstream (i.e. Spanish Fork River, Utah Lake, Jordan River and The Great Salt Lake)
3.	Trap/filter sediment, nutrients, and contaminants thus prevent (reducing) its movement downstream.  Riparian seeding and vegetation also can remove/alter organic nutrients through processes such as denitrification, absorption by clays, etc.

The proposed efforts will make best use of the perennial water source by developing suitable pools, better fish habitat and overall riparian health.

The Diamond Fork watershed is the largest headwater tributary of the Spanish Fork River. Water from the management area is used for stock water, irrigation, domestic, power, storage, and municipalities. Spanish Fork City receives municipal water from this management area. 
A major influence in this management area is the Central Utah Project (CUP). The CUP diverts Utah's share of Colorado River water (roughly 260,000 acre-feet of water annually) from the Duchesne River Basin. This project consists of a network of dams, water diversions, and reservoirs to transfer water from the Duchesne River and its tributaries to the Wasatch Front. The first diversion operations began in 1915 to transfer water from the West Fork Duchesne River to Strawberry Reservoir, then through the Sixth Water and Diamond Fork drainages to the Spanish Fork area.
In order to deliver this amount of water and restore habitats adversely impacted by historically high CUP water flows, a series of pipelines, tunnels, and aqueducts have been built to remove a majority of the transported water from the stream channels. In the fall of 1997, a 510 cfs (cubic feet per second) pipeline was completed from the mouth of Diamond Fork to Monks Hollow, and after that connected this pipeline to the Sixth Water aqueduct via a tunnel and/or additional pipelines. One of the main objectives of the operation of the Diamond Fork System is to provide flows that will allow mitigation or restoration of past impacts from the Strawberry Valley Project. Impacts from augmented flows include loss of a multiple age cottonwood forest along lower Diamond Fork and Sixth Water Creeks, stream channel down-cutting, excessive stream bank erosion, decreased aquatic habitat, and increased sedimentation. The selected flow regime, including its magnitude, timing, and duration, are among the most important factors in achieving restoration of the Sixth Water Diamond Fork channels and riparian resources.

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.

ROCK CLUSTERS, GRADE CONTROLS AND J-HOOK VANES: Large rocks will be strategically placed in sections of the river to develop more pool and fish holding habitats. These structures will also aid in maintaining stream elevation, reducing stream energy away from the banks and attempt to redirect or add sinuosity and complexity to the river.

ROOTWADS: Large rootballs will be placed and keyed into the banks of the river to generate large pools and redirect the river.

PALS: some Post Assisted Log Structures may be installed to add stream complexity and narrowing of channel width. Based on previous work with PALS done in Diamond Fork most of these PALS will be secured using large boulders rather than driving posts around the woody debris. Monitoring of this method of PALS construction has proven to be as or more effective than using the 4" posts.

SHRUB RESTORATION:
The fires also burned a lot of the shrub habitat that is important for mule deer during the winter. We are proposing to do the cultural clearance this year so that the USFS can do the necessary NEPA to allow us to seed and plant shrub and forb seedlings to restore this important big game habitat.

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.

The Diamond Fork Restoration Team determined that one of the main goals of the team is to establish a "medium sized fishery" or fishing opportunity in Diamond Fork. A river in size between the Provo River and Thistle Creeks. The habitat improvements will improve the fishery and provide better fishing opportunities for anglers. These improvements will also improve the success of the fish populations to be more self-sustaining.

The projects goal centers on speeding up the recovery of the riparian and aquatic community with the ultimate goal of restoring a self sustaining trout fishery for recreation and conservation purposes.

Diamond Fork has been on the potential Blue Ribbon Fisheries List and these efforts could help the Diamond Fork River reach that status and provide great fishing opportunities to anglers.

Diamond Fork Canyon is a High Use Recreational area for dispersed camping, fishing, hiking, hunting and ATV'ing, these stream restoration efforts will speed up the desirability of the area for the public.

The shrub restoration work will help ensure that we have healthy big game populations that will increase hunting opportunities.

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.