annual project reports

At any given time, SFJDWC has a multitude of projects happening concurrently across our watershed. Annual project reports reflect the diversity of funders and partners we work with and explain the conservation efforts put into each project over its years of implementation.

upper south fork bioassessment

Courtesy of Michael B. Cole & Christopher Burtch of Cole Ecological, Inc.:

Monitoring of instream and riparian conditions in the upper South Fork John Day River occurred between the mid 1990s and mid 2000s. Until 2017, no instream assessment or monitoring work had occurred in the upper South Fork since 2006. The South Fork John Day Watershed Council implemented a Rapid Riparian Re-vegetation (R3) effort in 2017. The R3 technique is intended to re-establish natural riparian conditions by planting over 2,500 hard wood plants per acre and along both sides of four miles of river. Complimenting this project was the installation of beaver-dam analogues that are intended to slow channel incision and re-connect the floodplain in order to provide water to the riparian plantings. The objective of this restoration project was to address reasons the South Fork John Day has been listed on the 303d list: reduce stream temperature, improve the biological integrity and increase dissolved oxygen.

In the summer of 2022, a bioassessment round was performed in five reaches within the restoration project area to evaluate the effects of the R3 project to date on the ecology and habitat in the upper South Fork of the John Day River. The results of the 2022 bioassessment were compared to those from the 2001, 2004, 2006, and 2017 monitoring efforts in order to make interferences about changes since in the implementation of the R3 project.

Those results are presented here.