Little Springs Habitat Enhancement Project

A restoration project recently completed involved a streambank bioengineering project on a spring creek tributary to the Lemhi River in Idaho with volunteers from Trout Unlimited and the Forest Service. Willow barbs with log constriction bunkers were installed along with pole plantings, half-logs, spawning partitions, and willow bundle revetments. The project was a great success with the Forest Service providing funding and design. TU members from the Snake River Cutthroats Chapter, in Idaho Falls did an excellent job of installing the features. The project should provide increased habitat diversity with enhanced scour pools, improved bank stability, and overhead cover for rearing steelhead, rainbow trout, cutthroat trout, bull trout, and brook trout. It was an excellent example of the Salmon-Challis National Forest extension to work on private lands on an important reach of stream off the Forest and Trout Unlimited being a dependable go-to group to get the job done.

Another project for TU will soon begin on the East Fork of the Big Lost River with the Wood River TU chapter. This will be a much needed stream bank bioengineering project to stabilize eroding banks and provide overhead cover to reduce thermal loading to a headwaters spring creek that has suffered from inappropriate grazing management. It should greatly improve a fishery that has been impacted by elevated temperature and sediment loading. Fish and Game has often had to fore go stocking Yellowstone cutthroat into this reach due to elevated stream temperatures in July and August, a time when fishing opportunity would normally be at it's peak.

Once again it's time to turn thoughts to heading south to Lake Powell for the annual transition from Idaho winter to something more inviting. The bass fishing is likely to come early with the warm weather and the respite of a secluded cove, a float tube, 1/32 ounce jigs and a fly rod bekon. In the west I don't think there is a better way to come out of hybernation. If you have any suggestions for plying the waters of Powell in a pontoon boat feel free to offer them.

If you can't afford to fix it, you can't afford to break it.

State and federal agencies responsible for maintaining fisheries values and water quality are playing a shell game with public resources. It's a pattern of circular logic that starts with resource degradation by over utilization by livestock, insufficient monitoring to identify trends in water quality and fisheries, and ultimately they fail to meet their own management standards. Eventually there is an intervention by a conservation group stating that the agency is not meeting its own management standards, resulting in a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act, or a "Taking" of an endangered species. This results in an increase in procedures and paperwork related to the intervention, either legal or NEPA, or process. The result is the agency claiming to not have enough time to do the compliance monitoring because they are bound-up in paper work. Eventually the stream is impaired enough to require implementation of best management practices that are more time consuming than the original monitoring and management. Ultimately a restoritive action is required that is far beyond the budget of the land management and regulatory agencies involved.

If you can't afford to fix it, you can't afford to break it. Manage appropriately. If a watershed is predisposed to stream degradation due to geology, climate, topography, or hydrologic conditions then the management has to be protective of natural conditions. I can't count the number of times I hear the excuse that a particular watershed NATURALLY has elevated fine sediment or unstable stream bank issues, only to see that there is no consideration of these same natural conditions in the land management regime. You can't blame the watershed for not holding up to improper management. You have to manage for fisheries and water quality given the natural conditions that are present. Aquatic species have evolved and proliferated in these natural conditions. Impacts to aquatic life occur after the land management attrocities.

Stream and Lake Restoration

Stream and Lake Restoration
Trout Unlimited is the leading conservation organization involved in stream restoration in Eastern and Central Idaho. When land management agencies drag their feet to meet their legal requirements to support the Clean Water Act, Trout Unlimited jumps in to initiate restoration and fisheries improvement projects. The Forest Service is up to 5 years overdue on delivering 3 implemenation plans to improve impaired waters on the Salmon-Challis National Forest. Trout Unlimited recognizes that simple implementation of grazing management, riparian planting, and reconnecting streams is not difficult or cost prohibitive. The best investment of your conservation dollar is with Trout Unlimited.