Streamside planting restores creekside

The bulldozers, graders and other heavy equipment have completed preliminary meadow restoration work at the Deschutes Land Trust's Camp Polk Meadow Preserve for this year. The past and future channel of Whychus Creek was located, mapped, and gouged out. Since then, however, the more delicate phase of replanting the project has been underway; and it will be another couple of years before the full force of the stream is sent down the restored route.

Nearly 50 years ago, the meadow's riparian habitat and salmon spawning grounds were destroyed in an effort to "control" Whychus Creek by moving it into an artificially created channel. Moving it back to its original course has proved to be no small task.

The reconstruction of the stream's natural meanders can't be rushed, since regeneration of riparian plant life takes time. Years, in fact. Tens of thousands of new plantings must be given time to establish roots and create a new streamside environment in the 145-acre preserve.

Amanda Egertson is the land trust's stewardship director. She has had a big role in the project. She recently led a tour of the property to show how the project is coming.

"At first, it was alarming to see what looked like destruction," she said of the first phase of the project, that stripped much of the meadow bare, "but, now, it's so much fun to see how it's going to rebound."

To plan and supervise the Camp Polk revegetation project, the land trust and Upper Deschutes Watershed Council contracted with Karen Allen, a habitat restoration ecologist for Aequinox, an environmental science and restoration firm. Allen reported that 113,000 individual plants had been placed when she wrapped up the fall planting season last week. The newly shaped landscape has been stocked with a variety of native sedges, shrubs, and trees. Tree and shrub plantings included alder, birch, cottonwood, willow, chokecherry and dogwood.

In addition to the hired crews supervised by Allen, she also had help from scores of volunteers. Central Oregon schools, and organizations such as Trout Unlimited and the East Cascades Bird Conservancy joined land trust volunteers to complete thousands of plantings.

"Vegetation is an extremely important component of the project," Allen said, "because the restored meadow channel will rely heavily on vegetation for bank stability and floodplain roughness. The strong root systems of wetland and riparian plants help stabilize banks and floodplain."

In order to sustain the new plantings and hydrate the meadow, temporary irrigation piping was installed along the reconstructed channel. Egertson said the water table in the meadow has risen up to three feet in some areas since the groundwater recharge began.

Although a healthy wildlife population is one of the land trust's primary goals, they had to make a special effort to keep deer away from the new plants while they become established. Toward that end, a solar powered electric fence was installed by volunteer Dave Breuer around the entire perimeter of the project.

Still, the deer have been a big problem, and the fence design has had to undergo a number of changes.

"The deer will be our archenemies for the next couple of years," Egertson said, "but then we'll take down the fences and embrace them."

Although expected, another significant issue has been the proliferation of weeds in the project area.

"Intensive weed management will be a constant concern for us," Egertson said. "We've caused quite a bit of disturbance, so we knew we were going to have major problems."

Weed control is the primary focus of the land trust's army of "Weed Warriors," a group of dedicated volunteers who pull weed duty at many of the land trust sites. Their leader, "Weed Warlord" Larry Weinberg, was recently recognized by the trust for his tireless efforts in the field of weed control.

Egertson told of one weed horror story where the Weed Warriors had to call in reinforcements.

"Hairy nightshade, a weed we've never seen before at Camp Polk, went bonkers in the lower reaches of the project area," she said. "By late August, there was a dense monoculture of it at Camp Polk. Yikes! So, we hired crews to come in and pull it for seven days straight!"

Mullein and thistle also caused weed problems, and all had to be hand-pulled. "It'll be critical to keep the weeds at bay and give all the native plants we put in the ground a chance to establish themselves," Egertson said.

Egertson said that restoration of the creek's original floodplain and wetlands has also been a key goal of the project; and, by following the creek's historical route, they actually ended up with "a little more flood plain than planned."

All along the newly excavated channel, old river rock was exposed for the first time in half a century. Land trust member and Indian Ford resident Nancy Stevens commented, "The rocks must have been excited when they were found and saw the light of day!"

Around 900 logs, complete with attached root systems, were brought in to add to the woody debris in the new channel system. The downed trees, along with the new plantings, will help stabilize the soils around the stream channel in the years ahead. Soil stability is important, not only to prevent erosion during normal stream flow but also during expected high-water events.

Allen seemed pleased to complete this phase of the plantings. "Now that we've got over 100,000 plants in the ground," she said, "it's nature's turn to create lush, diverse habitat." Next on the agenda is the seeding of native grasses; that will begin this month.

Egertson said that all the disturbed ground will be seeded to fill in the gaps around the plantings. Allen said she is still "crunching the numbers," but another 30,000 or more plantings are planned for next year.

When finished, the Camp Polk Meadow restoration project will add more than a half mile to the length of Whychus Creek. Land trust officials expect that the extra length will slow the rate of water flow, greatly expand the wetland area along the creek, and increase fish habitat diversity.

The Whychus Creek restoration at Camp Polk Meadow Preserve is a joint effort of the Deschutes Land Trust, the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council and the Deschutes National Forest. Major funders of the project include: Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board; Pelton Round Butte Fund (Portland General Electric & the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation); Oregon Department of Environmental Quality; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; National Forest Foundation and Deschutes River Conservancy.