Salmon River Watershed Restoration and Monitoring Project

The Salmon River Watershed Roundtable has been undertaking watershed planning and restoration activity for over 18 years. One objective within the Salmon River watershed plan identified in 1995 through a community driven, consensus planning process was to undertake activity that would return natural river process and function to the Salmon River watershed including large scale, long term streambank restructuring and riparian restoration activity at sufficient scale to enable improved riparian and fish habitat at a watershed level. The SRWR with its may partners have made substantial progress toward this goal with over 400 restoration sites now completed. The SRWR has set an interim goal of summarizing the outcome of this restoration activity by its 20th anniversary in 2013. To that end a reach by reach review of restored and unrestored sites is being undertaken. Results from reach assessments completed to date indicate that site by site improvements as well as indicators of landscape level improvement are evident and documentable and that landowner perception of the value of stream and riparian values has also improved (see attached Reach 7 and 8 summary report). The assessment project will continue with a final watershed report being completed by 2012. The 2012 report will summarize progress to date on a site by site basis as well as at a landscape level scale, and will provide recommendations on priorities for future SRWR activities.