The project goal is to improve the overall health of the entire Weber River Watershed (WRW). Restoration areas will including riparian, stream, wetlands, and upland sites. To accomplish our landscape-scale goal, we have relied on coordination and planning between many stakeholders including landowners, government entities, and non-profit organizations. The WRW serves as a recreational destination for thousands of people, including anglers, boaters, birdwatchers, and people interested in connecting with the outdoors. It also is home to thousands of residents both full time and as recreational cabin use. Despite its relatively modest size, the Weber River, which runs the entire stretch of the WRW, supports extensive recreational and ecological values and has become the third-most popular river fishery in the State of Utah, behind the legendary Green and Provo Rivers. Many tributaries, and even the heavily impaired lower river, sustain diverse and unique native species, including a fluvial population of large native Bonneville cutthroat trout and an imperiled population of bluehead sucker. Although the Weber River and its resources are socially and economically important, the numbers of fish, the condition of the stream corridor and the supporting forest ecosystem have dramatically declined over the past 20 years due to widespread habitat fragmentation, degradation, and fire suppression. In addition to being a popular recreational resource, the Weber River also provides critical drinking and irrigation water for approximately 21% of Utah's population. As such, the Weber River is a critical local and regional resource, but it currently faces daunting challenges and fulfills only a small portion of its full potential. Decades of forest fuel buildup within the WRW has significantly increased uncharacteristic wildfire risk throughout the west, leaving the ecological system vulnerable to the catastrophic impacts on residents, critical water and power infrastructure, aquatic and terrestrial habitat, and the local recreation economy. Efforts are needed to reduce fuel loads, enhance habitat, create defensible space and promote wildfire resilient forests and communities. This project will work to address and minimize these threats by working at a landscape level and utilizing the benefit of cross boundary mitigation and restoration work. Restoration work is needed to return the entire watershed to increased ecological function and its associated forest to a resilient landscape. The project area is important for recreation in the region (e.g., skiing, hiking, fishing, camping, and hunting) and is the source for culinary, secondary and replacement water for over 700,000 downstream beneficiaries.

The Weber Partnership is committed to the implementation of watershed improvement projects across the entire watershed and have worked with a variety of partners to develop this proposal. This is a multiyear project which is intended to be completed over several phases. Using a holistic watershed approach, it will focus on improving the ecological function of the entire system while improving water quality and quantity, enhancing wildlife habitat, promoting wildfire resilient forest and creating wildfire adapted communities. The project has multiple objectives designed to address the Watershed Restoration Initiative's priorities and the Shared Stewardship program. (1) Protect the lives of residents and firefighters from catastrophic wildfire. (2) Reduce fire risk to communities and infrastructure and reduce costs of post fire rehabilitation. (3) Improve forest health. (4) Improve fish and wildlife habitat, especially for the Bluehead Sucker. (5) Improve water quality and increase water quantity. (6) Address threats to species identified in the Wildlife Action Plan. (7) Addresses specific objectives identified in local, state, and federal resource management plans. (8) Increase forage for livestock where grazing is possible. (9) Increase and protect recreational opportunities such as skiing, hunting, fishing, and others. FY23 -- Phase 1 objective will focus on future cross boundary planning efforts, assessment of timber market and supply to support a biomass utilization facility, fuels mitigation in the headwaters WUI interface with USFS lands, and improvements to fisheries habitat, streambank stabilization and river access. While the project is broad in scope it is looking at a watershed level and picking of the low hanging fruit. Future proposals will tie efforts together, demonstrating elevated benefits at a landscape scale. Specifically for FY23: Fuel Mitigation: 200 homes in the Alpine Acres neighborhood, located at the headwaters of the Weber River, will be of focus for much-needed fuels reduction efforts to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire, promote wildfire within the headwaters of a significant water supply source. Fisheries and Stream: Ogden City is working in the partnership to improve the Weber River through Ogden City and is planning to design and implement projects over the next few years. In FY 23, Ogden City will design the Ogden Business Exchange Bluehead Sucker Backwaters and Serge Simmons River Access and Floodplain Reconnection. Biomass Utilization: Fund will be used to facilitate an analysis of the watershed and surrounding forest to gauge suitability for attracting a biomass facility to be located in Summit County. The facility will assist in reaching county climate goals and will provide alternatives for biomass processing from forest projects. BDA Installation: Design and permit LTPBR on 2 reaches, procure contractors to install posts, volunteers to build BDAs, and monitor both sites before and after implementation.

This project includes four primary activities that are each intended to address specific threat and deliver unique, but complementary ecological benefit. 1) Riverscape Restoration using Beaver Dam Analogs -- Riverscapes are the composition of stream channels and connected floodplain habitats within valley bottoms of watersheds. Throughout the western United States, tens of thousands of miles of riverscapes have been degraded, caused by structural starvation (e.g., loss of woody debris and channel meanders), through several mechanisms. In arid streams, historical overgrazing has led to this decline, but other factors such as flood control and infrastructure have also contributed. Degraded riverscapes are very efficient at draining water and mobilizing sediment. The goal of riverscape restoration is to reduce the efficiency through which water flows within tributary systems that contributes to mainstem rivers like the Weber River. Slowing the water as it flows through small watersheds increases sediment deposition and creates a heterogeneous flow path of water. By mimicking beaver dams, BDAs reintroduce structural complexity that historically existed within these watersheds, which feeds back to additional wood accumulation and recruitment in the stream channel. The environmental benefit of wood recruitment in the valley bottom includes the natural reconstruction of floodplains, improved distributed natural system storage, and wider riparian corridors. This leads to more diverse fish habitat instream, and increased diversity for riparian-dependent bird species. Riverscape Restoration will be concentrated on arid mid-elevation tributaries because they have historically been overgrazed leading to long-term destabilization and downcutting (or channel degradation) which has dropped local water tables and mobilized massive volumes of sediment downstream. 2) Aquatic Habitat Reconnection by modernizing the Dinsdale Irrigation Diversion- In 2013 Trout Unlimited completed a barrier assessment throughout the entire Weber River basin, including all the tributaries. Fish passage barriers are pervasive throughout the entire basin, with the presence of at least 396 complete and partial barriers. Aquatic habitat fragmentation by barriers to movement are key determinants of the long-term viability of native fish populations because they limit the amount of habitat available for populations and breakup formerly contiguous habitat into smaller segments (see Hilderbrand and Kershner 2000). Since the time that the assessment was completed, partners in the Weber River Basin have collaborated on the removal of over 20 barriers ranging from channel-spanning irrigation diversions to culvert replacements. Given the pervasiveness of barriers throughout the entire basin, we have focused habitat reconnection within three main geographic areas of the watershed based on the presence of Bonneville Cutthroat Trout and Bluehead Sucker. Modernization of the Dinsdale Diversion on the Ogden River opens 4 miles of mainstem river habitat to bluehead sucker and Bonneville cutthroat trout in the Weber River. 3) Floodplain channel reconstruction. The Lower Weber River from the mouth of Weber Canyon to the confluence with the Ogden River is being studied to determine how improvements will benefit aquatic life. Improving the stream health in approximately two miles of the Weber River is a priority. Historical imagery clearly shows that much of the Weber River followed a braided or anabranched meander pattern with a dynamic floodplain. The anabranched planform created diverse habitat for native fish. Much of the habitat diversity has been lost due to channel straightening, flood control, and infrastructure encroachment. It has been degraded due to extensive previous channel alterations and habitat simplification. This reach of the Weber River is currently listed on the Utah 303(d) list of impaired waters for not meeting the biological standard for cold water fish and their aquatic food chain. Additionally, this reach is one of the most urbanized rivers along the Wasatch Front. Recent studies by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and Utah State University have identified a recruitment bottleneck in this location for juvenile Bluehead Sucker (see Maloney 2017) and project partners are currently assessing the entire lower Weber River to identify key habitats in the area. 4) Fuel reduction and forest health measures. The 2019 National Hazards Mitigation Report revealed that investing in the upfront costs of wildfire fuel reduction treatments can deliver a 4:1 investment return. A 2020 study, published by UCANR Forest Advisors, of the comprehensive costs of wildfire in California, estimated that the 2018 wildfires cost the state around $150 Billion Dollars. Locally the 2018 Dollar Ridge Fire (Duchesne County, Utah) demonstrated the high cost of inaction: in its wake, in the first three years the water utility has paid water treatment costs of over $44 million, representing a 15x increase in operating costs. Additional cost are expected to accrue. Similarly, the 1996 Buffalo Creek wildfire and the 2002 Hayman wildfire both occurred in the Upper South Platte watershed of Colorado's front range. Pre-fire inaction combined with post-fire heavy rainfall brought 1 million cubic yards of sediment into Strontia Springs Reservoir, or 40 years' worth of sediment in one event, which interrupted service for two months. Treating just the headwaters of the watershed, that provides for 700,000 downstream residents, could cost upwards of $170 million dollars. Summit County is ambitiously creating a Resilience Fund, pursuing $30 million dollars for upfront treatment cost and creating a lasting endowment for maintenance work, these funds will be leverage for grants such as this one to fill the funding gap. This proposal will improve side channel habitat and floodplain dynamics in 1 ½ miles of the mainstem of the Weber River at two locations. The two areas identified for restoration are some of the few remaining areas where floodplain restoration is possible on the Weber River mainstem. The project is focused on reducing the risk of an Endangered Species Act listing for the Bluehead Sucker, which is currently a species of special concern in Utah. The main threats to Bluehead Sucker in the Weber River include lack of adequate spawning and juvenile rearing habitats and lack of longitudinal connectivity along the corridor. If these threats are not addressed, the habitat for Bluehead Suckers will reach an ecological threshold that will be difficult for the population to recover from. To abate these threats, the project will focus on creating and enhancing the aquatic and riparian habitats in and adjacent to the river with a specific focus on improving the juvenile rearing habitats and reestablishing suitable conditions for Bluehead Sucker to move up- and downstream throughout the riverscape. Degraded channel conditions have also restricted access opportunities for the public to enjoy the river. One of the most recognizable impacts to the Weber River is the segment that flows through Henefer Valley immediately below Echo Dam. In the 1960s, much of the entire river segment through the valley was straightened to facilitate the construction of Interstate 84. Based on a GIS analysis, the impacts of that project reduced the length of the river by over one mile, and the straightened habitat that remained is not of the same quality (Barton and Winger 1974). The Henefer Valley impact is an example of one of many that have occurred over the past 60 years as a range of factors have led to significant habitat loss. Using targeted data models developed by USU, cross boundary landscape scale fuels projects will be pursued. Alongside, will be individual WUI treatments, aspen regeneration, and riparian enhancements. A holistic approach to vegetation management at a watershed scale.

The Weber River Watershed Plan was developed in 2014 for the purposes as described above. A planning and advisory team and a separate restoration planning and implantation team, with watershed-wide representation, came together to identify the core ecological and social values throughout the entire watershed. The Vision Statement says: "To ensure the long-term sustainability of the natural environment, economy, and lifestyles that make the Weber River Watershed a unique and desirable place to live, work, and play." Formative partnerships and projects initiated since 2014 illustrate the building blocks of success. An extension of the planning process was developed in 2021 to address needed wildfire mitigation within the Watershed to promote wildfire resilient communities and ecosystems. The 2014 Weber River Watershed Plan, and subsequent 2021 planning efforts, was written to sustain the wide array of values within the watershed, ranging from water quality and quantity, to agricultural productivity, to recreation and native species conservation. Conservation of the range of values in the watershed is underpinned by a restoration planning process which includes core values of partnership, intentional innovation, knowledge, sustainable balance, stewardship, and integrity. Tools such as the Conservation Action Planning (CAP) approach, which were developed by The Nature Conservancy, are an integrated, science-based approach to ecological planning and restoration. The 2014 Weber River Watershed plan is based on the CAP approach, and through that process, we identified key conservation targets, 1) water supply, 2) native fishes, and 3) the ecological health of 6 distinct ecological systems within the Weber River Basin. The CAP approach "is a biologically driven process that guides project teams to identify effective conservation strategies....it provides an objective, consistent, and transparent accounting of all information developed through the process." Stewardship of habitat for native fishes such as Bonneville cutthroat trout and Bluehead sucker is a principal goal. The Bonneville cutthroat trout is a cold-water dependent trout and is also the state fish of Utah. Cold-water aquatic life beneficial use is impaired in several of the Ecological Systems within the Weber River Basin. Other impairments, which have seen marked improvements since water quality project implementation include sedimentation and phosphorus. This framework of the Weber Watershed Plan leads to projects that are not only top-down, implemented from government agencies, but also grassroots projects with a bottom-up, localized approach. Several years deep into the Weber River plan, we are seeing a significant shift from top-down water quality improvement projects led by government agencies to a bottom-up approach focused on ecosystem resilience and proactive sedimentation mitigation measures. Such an approach is illustrated by the private landowner-based BDA enthusiasm. BDAs address both water quality and quantity in the watershed, as they capture suspended sediment while slowing down the flow in critically incised headwater streams and thus restore floodplain connectivity and facilitate recovery of rangeland health. Native Bonneville Cutthroat trout depend upon the spawning habitat found in these upper headwaters tributaries. The surrounding rangeland is critical mule deer and elk winter range. The goals of the Weber Watershed Plan are being met, and funding through this grant opportunity would facilitate a scaling up of progress. The Weber Watershed Restoration Project also falls within the Western Uintas Management Area and is supported by the Uinta Wasatch Cache National Forest Revised Forest Management Plan, and the Uinta Forest Plan-Land and Resource Management Plan. Vegetation management will improving soil, water, and ecological conditions within the Watershed to restore the overall watershed health. Uncharacteristic wildfire Risks to private property will be reduced through facilitated coordination with landowners, partners, and stakeholders, allowing for a leveraged cross boundary approach to mitigation. In Alpine Acres, the State of Utah Department of Natural Resources and private homeowners will work together to provide fuel breaks and defensible space around home and adjacent to USFS land which is slated to be mitigated in future project phases, all resulting in a restore vegetation diversity and forested stand vigor. State of Utah - Forest Service Shared Stewardship Agreement -This project falls within priority watersheds identified by the State of Utah and the Forest Service for treatment under the signed Stewardship Agreement of May 2019 and is located in critical Mule Deer habitat seen as priority of the UDWR. Partnerships with water delivery entities such as Weber Basin Water Conservancy District and smaller water companies such as the Dinsdale Water Company have begun to move the ecological needle in terms of ensuring that new infrastructure is compatible with fish movement and watershed protection. The watershed plan has taken these relationships a step further by providing a strategic framework for barrier removal and funding ongoing upland fuel treatments. We know where the barriers are on the landscape, and that knowledge allows us to proactively identify ecologically meaningful projects.

The combination of an essential watershed, high recreation use, and a high to extreme wildfire risk rating according to UWRAP designated Weber River Watershed project a priority area for WRI and the Shared Stewardship program. Decades of wildfire suppression has resulted in stand vigor dominated by disease and insect infestation. Massive amounts of dead/down and dying conifers fill the landscape predisposing it to uncharacteristic wildfire. These wildfire impacts continue to worsen as the American West, currently facing historic drought conditions and climate change impacts, is getting warmer and drier. At the same time spending is not keeping pace with the increasing costs of wildfire suppression. While fuel treatments will continue to be important for minimizing the undesirable ecological effects of fire, and for enhancing firefighter safety; treatments must be implemented strategically across large areas. Collaboration among agencies, private landowners, and other organizations is critical for ensuring resilience and sustainable forest management. Inaction will contribute to commerce, infrastructure, and private property damage. Pro-active planning and action will increase resilience in the Weber River watershed and enhance and safeguard the drinking water for over 700,000 Utahns, protect the nearly $5 billion in gross regional product in Summit County, and preserve our way of life. This project promotes wildfire adaptive communities, wildfire resilient ecosystems and will pave the way for future fire risk reduction efforts including controlled burns through the USFS. The BDAs and stream restoration increase riparian areas which act as green belts, or natural fire breaks, slowing the spread and reducing the intensity of uncharacteristic wildfire.

One of the primary objectives of the proposed project is to increase the habitat quality in the Weber River, to address degradation of water quality and to protect the watershed from post-fire debris flow by strategic vegetation treatments. The source of water quality degradation has not been quantified, but the most likely causes are channelization, lack of floodplain connectivity, and lack of quality riparian vegetation buffers. Our project will address these hydromodifications. Additionally, storm water runoff has been found to be an issue in many urban areas across the state and nation. We will address stormwater by enhancement of the treatment of urban runoff by installation of bioswales and other "Green Infrastructure." Healthy streams improve water quantity by storing water in the watershed and slowly releasing water longer into the season. Higher in the watershed, low-tech, process-based stream restoration activities will reduce fine sediment supply and improve water quantity in the watershed by retaining higher soil moisture levels and elevating the local water table proximal to our projects. Fuel treatments that improve forest health and promote wildfire resilience will reduce the amount of post-fire sediment and soil organics that could reach the Weber River. Reduction of vegetation can also contribute to increased groundwater recharge and surface water runoff.

Cultural resource surveys will be completed before project work begins. Joint Utah Division of Water Rights/U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Stream Alteration Permits and County Floodplain approvals will be obtained before stream restoration activities are implemented. All project activities, particularity vegetation treatments, will adhere to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and avoid take of breeding birds.

Backwaters Restoration: Ogden City will work with our partners to evaluate the opportunities for enhancement of Bluehead Sucker and Bonneville Cutthroat Trout habitats in the Weber and Ogden Rivers in FY 23. For this effort we will collect data on the rivers and develop some draft conceptual designs for the sites. Low-tech, Process-based Stream Restoration: Low-tech structures (i.e., beaver dam analogs and post-assisted log-structures) will be constructed using the methods described in Low-tech, Process-based Restoration of Riverscapes (Wheaton et al. 2019). Untreated wooden fence posts approximately 3-4" in diameter will be used in construction. Posts will be driven into the stream bed with a gas or hydraulic post pounder. The posts will extend approximately one meter above the channel bed and be spaced approximately 0.5 - 0.8 meters apart, and driven to a depth of approximately one meter into the streambed. Then, native vegetation, rocks, and mud will be weaved between the posts to create a structure that will resemble a beaver dam. The structure will slow water flow, but allow fish to pass through. The structures will be placed 10-30 meters apart within the stream reaches. After a year the health of the stream will be evaluated, and future actions can be planned. Additionally, willows or other native plants may be planted at the restoration sites to improve the establishment of riparian vegetation. Forest Management: The project includes cut, pile, and burning of dead or dying conifer, ladder fuels and crown reducing fuel in strategic areas, targeting vegetation within WUI areas and in high use travel corridors in order to create defensible space and increase ingress and egress to and from the area. FFSL, and contractors will cut and chip along the access roads. Adjacent areas are in the planning stages for connecting treatment from private to USFS at a landscape scale. These areas and other will be introduced in future project phases. Biomass Utilization: Contractor will be retained to perform a forest wide analysis to determine the amount of biomass available to support an innovative biomass facility in Summit County. The facility will have to capacity to convert timber waste to power, heat, renewable diesel fuel and soil enhancing bio-char. Results of the study will inform the location and situationally of such a facility and will attract investors to the project.

There have been several efforts in recent years to characterize the habitats and water quality in the Weber River. These include riparian vegetation surveys, water quality sampling, and fish surveys. An assessment of riparian areas was conducted in 2015, 2017, and 2019. The Utah Division of Water Quality conducted a targeted sampling for water quality at site #4920220 in 2015 and this will be repeated on a 6 year cycle. The Weber Basin Water Conservancy District conducts regular sampling of chemical water quality parameters at the kayak park and will continue to sample in the future. A Bluehead Sucker recruitment bottleneck study was conducted by Utah State University in 2014-2016 and the final report is expected in 2017. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources conducts population monitoring for Bluehead Sucker in the Weber River on a three-year rotating basis with the next survey planned for 2018. Additionally, we are working with Utah Water Watch at USU to develop a citizen science monitoring program and working to include students and professors from Weber State University. UDWR biologists survey the Lower Weber River for Bluehead and other sucker spawning areas and improved Bluehead juvenile backwaters on an annual or biannual basis. Low-tech, Process-based Restoration sites will be monitored before and after with the Rapid Stream-Riparian Assessment, which assigns scores for stream function. Extensive stream temperature monitoring has been conducted since 2017, and we propose to continue extensive monitoring of detailed stream temperature data. The river restoration sites will be monitored for water quality parameters, riparian cover, macroinvertebrates, and fish in partnership with the Utah Water Watch, RiverRestoration, UDWQ, and other Weber River Partnership entities.

Weber Partnership - numerous members - stakeholder engagement and education. Trout Unlimited - Project Management, Stakeholder Facilitation, and Technical Expertise Summit County - Project Management, Stakeholder Facilitation, and Technical Expertise Forestry Fire and State Lands - funding, treatment implementation and technical advice. U.S. Forest Service - Project management, technical advice, treatment implementation World Resources Institute - Project Management, Stakeholder Facilitation, and Technical Expertise, innovative finance mechanisms The City of Ogden - sub-project lead role completing the design and implementation of the project. River Restoration - River Engineering, Leading Monitoring Efforts, Project Management. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - technical advice Utah State University - Utah Water Watch Program - monitoring - Fuel treatment data generation Weber State University - classroom groups learning in the field. Trails Foundation of Northern Utah - local trail group working on access and trail connectivity, also local landowner. Tree Utah - assistance in planting seedlings for revegetation. Weber Waterways - local boaters group - site stewardship. Utah Division of Natural Resources - technical advice. Utah Division of Water Quality - funding and technical advice. National Park Service Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program - stakeholder development. Weber Basin Water Conservancy District - water quality monitoring and major funding of fuels projects. Mountain Regional Water - water quality monitoring and funding of fuels projects Sedgeland Collaborative - Permitting, volunteer recruiting and management, monitoring. Backcountry Hunters & Anglers - volunteers for BDAs

The Weber Partnership along with Summit County will continue to work to improve the river, riparian areas and upland vegetation along the Weber River and will maintain improvements in the future. Focused restoration and establishment monitoring of the aquatic and riparian habitat improvements will be conducted for 3-5 years post-construction. Then the partners will continue to manage invasive species and river ecosystems as part of their regular maintenance. Follow up treatments for noxious/invasive species and fuel treatments will be part of a long-term adaptive management strategy used in the watershed. Summit County is building a watershed scale wildfire Resilience Fund (RF). The RF will pool financial support from stakeholder, beneficiaries, individuals, and corporations with common vested interests to fund the upfront and long-term maintenance costs of watershed protection, forest health, and fuels treatments across public and private landscapes and invest in long-term management strategies to increase community wildfire resilience in Summit County and the 700,000 downstream recipients. The fund will eventually be a long-term source for maintenance of the project. Private landowners, while being monitored by Summit County Public Lands office, will be responsible for retreatments of individual properties or for providing a maintenance easement to the county for future retreatments and future management on private lands. Ogden City has taken over the stewardship of the Weber and Ogden Rivers through the City and will continue to manage the rivers and adjacent areas through the Engineering and Parks Departments.

The project will benefit the sustainable use of the Weber Watershed. The Weber River as a recreation resource for anglers, wildlife watchers, and boaters. Allowing safe downstream access for boaters and upstream access for fish. The agricultural community will benefit from enhanced riparian health and more resilient riparian corridors on their private land as sedimentation is reduced significantly. Water quality improvements will occur throughout the watershed, from the headwaters to the lower Weber, beneficial to people, wildlife, and economic interests alike. Water providers will benefit from reduced long term strain on water treatment facilities attributed to the targeted upland treatments that reduce fuel load, improve forest resilience, minimize fire intensity and lessen the potential post-fire debris flows into the Weber River and its tributaries. Restoring streams with low-tech, process-based restoration includes working with landowners to improve grazing which many include modifying grazing regimes. Low-tech restoration promotes riparian vegetation (i.e., forage) and water supply, which are beneficial to the watershed and livestock alike. In fuel treatment area there will be an increase in forage availability by reducing the canopy cover and promoting light to enter the forest floor. Additionally, BDAs will increase forage and disperse water contributing to the grazing benefit for wildlife and livestock alike. This project is investigating innovative use for the biproduct of fuel treatments and will inform the future or biomass utilization in for the Wasatch back. A large part of Utah's economy is driven by this recreation and protecting the Weber River Watershed will help preserve those sustainable uses and continue to support the economy.

07/01/2022

06/30/2024

2024

1. Sageland Collaborative's role in the WRI grant (5910, Weber Watershed Resilience FY23) Design & Permit LTPBR projects on 2 reaches (Fish creek Phase 5, Branch Creek Phase 2), procure contractors to install posts, volunteers to build BDAs, purchase posts, monitoring both sites before & after implementation 2. Trout Unlimited role in this WRI grant was to design, permit, construct, and monitor fish passage, diversions, bank stabilization and BDA structures along the Weber River and Fish Creek 3. Summit County BDO zone analysis, review and stakeholder group 4. Forestry Fire and State lands did not complete their portion

TU: BDAs were installed on Fish Creek and planning and compliance processes for BDAs were completed for BDA installations of Fish, Branch, and Cottons South creeks. For these projects, other funding sources require a NEPA process, which has thus far culminated in a categorical exclusion for Branch and Cottons South creeks. Additionally, posts were purchased for Cottons Creek and Branch Creek and BDAs were installed in August-September 2023. Grade-control structures were installed at Blackner's Bend. These structures ensure that side channels are activated during high flows and were used during the above-average spring flows of 2023. The activated side channels functioned as intended and added approximately 0.8 miles of side channel habitat during the spring. Design for Ogden Business Exchange barrier removal was initiated. This project will provide fish passage, improve safety for recreational use in the area, and improve aquatic-organism habitat. Furthermore, just upstream of this area, design for a recreational access at Serge Simmons has begun. Conceptual design for the Weber River Channel on the Morgan Ranch has been completed and engineering is underway. Conceptual design includes stabilization of the channel at three locations using root wads to improve habitat. Additionally, habitat for fishes including Green Sucker will be improved as part of this project by stabilizing an overflow channel that provides backwater habitat. Implementation of this project is expected to occur in phases. Final design and permitting for Dinsdale Diversion were completed with implementation scheduled for the fall of 2024. During FY23, a NEPA process that culminated with a categorical exclusion was undertaken. After high flows, it was determined that additional survey data should be collected. The engineering for the Tom Boyer Diversion modernization was completed and permitting is underway. Construction is expected to occur this fall/winter (2023) and will include a roughened boulder ramp to allow fish passage, a flow meter system to monitor irrigation consumption, and piping of the fish-screen return flow to prevent entrainment. Design of Wilson Canal fish passage is beyond 60% design; however, we have been unable to obtain adequate construction funds. Therefore, the project will continue once funds have been obtained. Design and construction of the Fish Creek Livestock Water System has been put on hold. Sageland Collaborative: Objective: Design & Permit LTPBR projects on 2 reaches, procure contractors to install posts, volunteers to build BDAs, purchase posts, monitoring both sites before & after implementation Outcomes: During FY23, we successfully designed and acquired permits for beaver dam analogs in two streams in the Chalk Creek watershed- Fish Creek Phase 4 and Branch Creek Phase 2. We successfully implemented 40 BDAs in Fish Creek. Due to delays in permitting associated with matching federal funds the second site (Branch Creek Phase BDAs) were delayed, but currently slated for implementation this fall (October, 2023). We completed pre-restoration Rapid Stream-Riparian Assessment (RSRA) surveys at both sites during FY23, and post-restoration surveys on Phases 1-3 of Fish Creek restoration. I've attached a report detailing cumulative monitoring results in Fish Creek & Branch Creek. Summit County: Completed BDO zone analysis (see attached)

TU: Future work will include monitoring of installed BDAs and monitoring/installation of planned BDAs. Blackner's Bend will be fully evaluated to determine if grade control structures continue to function as intended. Additionally, monitoring and installation of the Tom Boyer diversion and Dinsdale Diversion will occur. Sageland Collaborative: Successful agency and NGO partnerships with private landowners has led to a number of exciting future management opportunities & activities. One highlight is the reintroduction of beaver to Fish Creek in July, 2022. Sageland Collaborative & other partners continue to work with landowners to monitor the status of beaver in the creek, and potential conflicts with infrastructure. This project as past phases of WRI funding for Weber River headwaters set the stage for two multi-year federal grants to continue working communities in the Weber River headwaters to implement, manage, and monitor restoration projects in Chalk Creek, Echo Canyon, headwaters to Rockport Reservoir, and Smith & Morehouse Reservoir. Those projects are underway, and funds are supporting additional monitoring of these & other sites. We successfully applied for additional funding through WRI to support matching these grants in FY24 and were awarded a grant from Utah's nonpoint source management program to host two more workshops related to riverscape restoration in both the Weber headwaters and main stem of the Weber River in Ogden.