Helena area stream restoration volunteer event - this Saturday!!

Mine waste in the Telegraph Creek floodplain (image source unknown) 

The Pat Barns Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Trout Unlimited-National, and the Little Blackfoot River (near Helena) need you!!

"The Pat Barnes Chapter of Trout Unlimited and TU’s Clark Fork River Project invite you to join us in our efforts to revegetate the restored section of Telegraph Creek at the Lilly Orphan Boy Mine site. In 2016, TU and Montana DEQ removed 9,000 cubic yards of mine waste from Telegraph Creek and restored 350 feet of stream channel in the headwaters of the Little Blackfoot River.

The day will begin with a tour of the restored stretch of Telegraph Creek. Rob Roberts, TU Project Manager, will explain the techniques TU and partners used to reclaim the mine site and reconstruct Telegraph Creek. Following the tour, we will plant native trees and shrubs in the restored area.

Revegetation of this area will protect the stream bank and hillslope, promote native plant growth, and add shade to Telegraph Creek.  Please meet at 8:00 AM at the Van’s Thriftway parking lot on Saturday, September 30th. From there we will drive an hour to the site. Please bring appropriate clothing, footwear, and work gloves. Lunch will be provided.  We will finish the volunteer event around 2pm.

To RSVP please contact Max Lewis ASAP via phone or email at mlewis@tu.org or 207-701-1683. "

Gary Lafontaine wrote of the Little Blackfoot River, "There is no stream more special to me than the Little Blackfoot River. Let me completely protect one drainage in the state, from ranching, mining, logging, and even over fishing, and this would be the one."

If you have not yet explored the Little Blackfoot River or its tributaries, do it.  This fall.  I worked in the valley a few years back doing a fish passage/entrainment project from the mouth all the way up every trib.  I went places and met people in that valley that I will probably never see again.  And, I can tell you one thing, this fishery is about as resilient as one can get.

The Little Blackfoot River is heavily degraded and is heavily relied upon for irrigation. Many of its banks have been hoof sheered right out of existence, and there are fish-eating canals and irrigation dams galore!  Meanwhile, just about every one of the tributaries (Telegraph Creek, Dog, Ontario) have major impacts from historic mining. Yet, the fishery lives on.  The lower river has medium-sized (6-16'') brown trout galore.  In the fall, you might find some bigger ones that come in from the Clark Fork.  This area of the river is hard to get on as the entire valley floor is private cattle ranches but there are many locations to exercise legal MT stream access and there is one FWP access site.  The middle reaches have a mix of browns and westslope cutts and the upper (above Elliston) turns into more of a cutthroat fishery.

The Little Blackfoot is a major and vital tributary to the Upper Clark Fork River, a river that has gone through ecological disasters on an unimaginable scale.  The Upper Clark Fork is currently undergoing a major, and I mean MAJOR, restoration project to remove millions of yards of heavily contaminated mine wastes from the good ol' days in Butte and Anaconda.   Likewise, the tributaries of the Little Blackfoot are receiving some love from TU National and stream restoration badass, Rob Roberts.  Be a part of it and get off your ass to do something good.

Are you a TU member like me that can't just write checks or make donations because you are a broke ass who is following your dreams instead of following the money train?  Well here's your chance to give your "in-kind" donation.  I have always been disappointed in the fly fishing community when it comes to volunteer events.  Fly fishers like to talk but they rarely walk the walk.  Prove me wrong!!

Montana Tech Restoration Seminar Presents: Marty Bennett

Volunteer to help the Big Hole

"The Big Hole Watershed Committee and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks are in need of volunteers to  cut willow stakes for the French & Moose Creek restoration project area. BHWC, MFWP, and volunteers will meet:
Monday, April 25, 2016 9am at the Moose Creek turnoff
Directions:

Find the Moose Creek turnoff:

The Moose Creek turnoff is located on Highway 569 (Mill Creek Road), the Scenic Byway between Highway 43 and Anaconda, MT.  Blue signs marked BHWC Restoration Tour will be visible. Please note, this is a volunteer field day, not a restoration tour. The French & Moose Creeks restoration project tour will be held later at a later date.

Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Please bring sunscreen and loppers/cutters if available.

RSVP to:
Tana Nulph, BHWC Conservation Programs Coordinator, by April 21st 406-267-3421 or tnulph@bhwc.org so we can plan for lunch.

Thank you for your support!

About the French & Moose Creeks Restoration Project:
The French & Moose Creeks restoration project will repair streams impacted by historic placer mining and smelting that occurred around the turn of the 20th century. The restoration will improve water quality & the fishery and will restore degraded wetlands. Willows cut in April will be planted in May/June. The French & Moose Creek project is a collaborative effort with several funding sources and nearly $1.3 million in funding secured."
-GGTU

Montana Tech Restoration Ecology Seminar Presents: Amy Sacry of Geum Environmental Consulting

Milltown soil lifts and bank armor (photo taken from Geum's website)

Tomorrow, February 3, 2016, the Montana Tech Ecological Restoration Seminar presents Amy Sacry of Geum Environmental Consultants.  She will be discussing "Revegetation Theory and Practice." 

Geum and Amy have their hands in restoration projects all over Montana.  Most notably, they did the revegetation of the Miltown floodplain after the removal of the Milltown Dam and they are now working on the massive Upper Clark Fork Restoration Project. Amy is everywhere all the time and I've run into her at many different Trout Unlimited restoration projects as well.

This is not one to be missed!!  The seminar is on the Montana Tech campus, in Butte, Montana in the Chemistry and Biology Building (room 102) @ 4 pm.  This seminar is open to the public!

I'll see you there!

   

Restore Our Creek Coalition and the Montana Standard to hold public forum on the Parrot tailings

The Restore Our Creek Coalition and the Montana Standard will be holding a public forum to discuss the removal of the Parrot Tailings along Upper Silver Bow Creek.  This should be a really cool meeting because representatives from the EPA, the MT DEQ, ARCO, BNRC, and Butte Silver Bow will all be together in one place with the public.

The forum will be at 6:30 pm on Tuesday, January, 19th at the Mining City Center, 400 West Park Street, in Butte, Montana.

George Grant Chapter of TU will meet to discuss cleanup and restoration of Clark Fork R. and Silver Bow Cr. (updated)

The George Grant Chapter of Trout Unlimited is holding a Board of Directors meeting and the public is invited.  Some folks representing TU and the MT DOJ, as well as, Joe Griffin (retired MT DEQ hydrogeologist and all-around bad-ass) will be giving a presentation on the restoration and mine waste cleanup on Silver Bow Creek and the Upper Clark Fork River.

Updates:

• Casey Hackathorn of Trout Unlimited (national) will present on the Upper Clark Fork and its tributaries.
• Jason Lindstrom of MT FWP will present electro-fishing data from Silver Bow Creek.
• Pat Cunneen of the BNRC will likely present on efforts to remove the Parrot Tailings, Diggins East, and Northside Tailings from the banks of Upper Silver Bow Creek in Butte.

This is not one to be missed!!

The meeting is Monday, December 14, at 6:30 pm in the Business Development Center @ 305 W. Mercury St. in Butte, Montana. 

Clark Fork Coalition hosting Modesty Creek restoration presentation in Missoula (updated)

Photo from clarkfork.org

Next Tuesday at 12:00 pm, the Clark Fork Coalition will be having a presentation about the recently restored/reconnected Modesty Creek as part of their "Walks and Talks" series.  The presentation will be at their office in Missoula at 140 S. 4th St. W.  The  restoration site is upstream from the town of Deer Lodge.  Modesty Creek is a tributary to the Upper Clark Fork and has been diverted and disconnected from the Clark Fork for a long time.

Visit the Clark Fork Coalition's website for more information on the project and the field trip.

Lost Horse Creek Stream Restoration - CFC Event Today!

Backstage pass - Upper Truckee River restoration project

It is my last few days here in California.  I'll be back to the land of trout very soon and will have lots of autumn-in-Montana goodness to share with the world.  Until then, here is a final post on the goings on here in California.

Since I've been here, I've learned a lot about the ecological issues facing the local streams and, of course, beautiful Lake Tahoe.  Just about every car here has the "Keep Tahoe Blue" sticker on it.  I even see them up in Montana every once in a while.  While the stickers sell like hotcakes, what is actually being done to protect the lake and its tributaries?  Well, take a look...

Upper Truckee River Stream Restoration Project

I was invited to go on a tour of the Upper Truckee Restoration site yesterday and it was a valuable learning experience.  The US Forest Service is preforming a complete stream channel re-construction on a large stretch of the river.  Why?

Degraded, eroded, over-widened Upper Truckee River stream channel 

To the untrained eye, this may look like a picturesque meadow stream however, it's really not and there is a lot of stuff going on here which is bad for the stream and Lake Tahoe.

The Upper Truckee's banks are badly eroded and getting worse as you can see in the picture.  They are so badly eroded that even the bank vegetation that currently exists is falling into the river.

The stream is also incised, meaning that is has eroded itself into a deep channel which is completely separated from its floodplain.  The Upper Truckee has lost its ability to naturally overflow out into the meadow around it.  This is important for dispersing energy during high flows, filtering the water before it goes into the lake, and creating riparian habitat adjacent to the stream.

The stream is also over-widened meaning that during low flows, the river is shallow and warms easily.  Not good for our trout friends!

At this point, the Upper Truckee is the largest non-point source of sediment and nutrients to Lake Tahoe.  Reconnecting the stream to the floodplain and the resulting filtering processes are a vital part of "Keeping Tahoe Blue."    

US Forest Service employees getting a tour of the project site

So, what went wrong?  How did the river get so F-ed up?

Well, it's all of the usual culprits.  Urbanization, historic uses, intensive bank-side grazing, upstream bank stabilization, etc, etc, etc.

Roughing in the new channel

Heavily engineered stream channel construction in process

New stream bed in recently completed section

Willow growing from planted willow cuttings

This reach was completed only a year ago and the willows are starting to go nuts 

Like a lot of restoration projects, this one has some political contention.  I understand that most people don't really get stream geomorphology, hydrology, and ecology and the idea of rebuilding a section of stream when the old one is perceived to be "just fine" is a major hurdle for all restoration projects.  Communicating these concepts to the public in a way that is effective and understandable is one of the hardest aspects of restoration.  In this case, the USFS is doing a pretty good job.

If you have any qualms about this project, go learn about it.  They have about 3 field trips like this a week and you can bring up any concerns and questions you might have.  While it may not change your mind, you'll at least know more about the project and the thought process behind it.  This project also went through a massive public comment period and has more bureaucratic restraints than I have ever seen on a project like this.

Get involved - don't just put a sticker on your car!

Stream restoration volunteer event tomorrow Sat. April, 26 in the Bitterroot Valley

The Bitterroot Waster Forum is holding a volunteer event to assist with revegetation efforts on Doran Creek in the Bitterroot Valley.

FROM THEIR WEBSITE:

April 26th BRWF will be hosting phase one of our new restoration project at Doran Creek, a willow cutting event. Phase two we will be planting these willows to increase shade and reduce sediment on this tributary of Cameron Creek and will take place on May 10th.

 When: Saturday, April 26th from 10:30am to 4:00pm

*There will be limited parking space on site─ we will meet at 9:30 am at the Safeway in Hamilton (101 E. Main St) to run a carpool.

**If you can't make it to the carpool, call the BRWF office for directions. What to bring: Please wear sturdy shoes, dress appropriately (layers), and bring water. Let us know if you can bring loppers or gardening shears.

Lunch will be provided by BRWF.

 Please RSVP by calling 406.375.2272 or e-mailing katie.brwf@gmail.com