The Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce (CREST) is working on a design concept for three new projects on the upper Grays River.

CREST has received a $40 thousand research grant through an operating agreement between NOAA and the Ecotrust “Whole Watersheds Restoration Initiative.” The grant is to begin the conceptual design phase of a job that, if funded, would restore several areas of riverbank and salmon spawning areas along the upper Grays, constantly being impacted by winter floods and erosion.

Amy Ammer is CREST’s Habitat Restoration Specialist. “There are actually three sites we’re looking at on the river,” she said, “and what we’re hoping is, this summer to develop a design plan that would let us work our way down river from one site to the next.”

Ammer said the projects under consideration include Gorley Springs - Phase 2 which would continue work started last year on about 3500 feet of riverbank.

Next, the CREST design looks at the riverbank three miles further down river. The design for the Sorenson Beach property calls for about 1000 feet of riverfront to be repaired near the Covered Bridge.

Finally CREST’s plan moves another four and half miles down river to the Gudmundsen Point property and reworks about 1500 feet of bank.

The projects probably won’t be funded until 2012.

Ammer said both Stan Sorenson and Jon Gudmundsen asked CREST to consider their properties for rehabilitation. “Jon approached me after a meeting we both attended and we talked about the benefits of partnering. We went out to look at his property and discussed both our interests,” said Ammer.

Ammer said Gudmundsen liked what he heard and decided to work with CREST to renovate and stop the erosion on his land.

Ammer said it was the same with the Sorenson family property. “Stan is the family’s representative. He called and asked if he could take a look at what we’d done during Phase I of the Gorley Springs operation. Once he saw the project he decided to let us develop a plan for his site too,” said Ammer.

According to maps supplied by CREST, the plan reworks a total of about 5000 feet of right-bank river frontage. “Both the Sorenson and Gudmundsen properties have significant erosion problems,” said Ammer.

It’s not that the soil erosion happens every year, but Ammer said because each year is different the overall effect of water washing away the dirt year after year destroys salmon habitat, “...and by addressing the soil erosion, we address the fish habitat issue,” she said.

Ammer said the problems at the Gudmundsen and Sorenson sites are relatively minor in relation to Gorley Springs but, “These sites, while significantly impacted can be corrected easily, so it’s a definite win-win for both fish and property owner.” she said.

CREST’s rehabilitation of the Gudmundsen/Sorenson properties starts with a survey of the proposed sites. The design will improve the gravel beds for salmon spawning and identify invasive vegetation such as Japanese knotweed, Himalayan and Evergreen Blackberry and Scotch Broom localized in the area.

“We’re not going to treat the whole thing with in-water treatments,” said Ammer, “we’ll do a lot of riparian plantings too, how the land owners feel is appropriate.”

Ammer said both the Gudmundsen and Sorenson properties have had significant land loss which have impacted fish habitat. She said to fix the erosion CREST plans to install engineered log jams on the right bank of Sorenson’s riverfront property, just south of the Covered Bridge. “This should also help stabilize that section of Loop Road that’s been eroding for awhile,” said Ammer.

The CREST plan also calls for the same approach to the Gudmundsen property four miles further down river. “This site also has public water utilities running through one field so I think if we help stabilize that we’ll also help the community as well.”

Another component of the CREST plan calls for community education. Ammer said she plans to hire two Naselle/Grays River Valley High School students to work with her staff as the project progresses. “Students will learn to survey and sample for macro-invertebrates, "the bugs that live in the gravel and that fish eat,” she said. “You can get a good idea of how healthy an environment is by surveying its bug population.”

Biologists have learned different species of salmon have evolved to spawn in different geographic areas of Grays River. Coho, for instance, like to spawn in the long gravel beds on the Sorenson site. Chum and Chinook salmon like the gravel and deep pools of water further up river at Gorley Springs.

“Chum and Chinook salmon usually head to the ocean shortly after birth while the Coho and Steelhead winter over in the river for the first year,” said Ammer. She also indicated this was the reason for the manufactured log jams used to create pools for the fish to live in the first year of their life.

In 2009 CREST came under criticism because residents living below the Gorely Springs restoration site found logs on their property they said had washed down from CREST’s manufactured log jams. The report said the logs had been tagged by CREST and were lying far from the Gorley Springs site.

“It’s true,” said Ammer. “They did see tagged logs but the logs were placed there by nature.” She said in 2008 CREST tagged several logs already on the Gorly Springs site as an experiment to see where the winter floods of 2009 would take them. “We tagged nature’s logs with blue tags,” said Ammer, “and the logs we brought in for our engineered log jams we tagged with silver tags.”

Ammer said ideas for Crest’s projects are typically inspired by private landowners, local watershed councils or members of the community. Ammer said a part of CREST’s goal is to take into account the community’s support and concerns. “That’s one of the strengths our funders have recognized,” said Ammer, “it’s because we often live in the communities where we work, there is often trust in what we do.”

Ammer said she lives in Naselle, and stresses that CREST is not a land acquisition NGO. Instead the organization is chartered to assist council governments in the local counties, cities and port districts surrounding the Columbia River Estuary in both Oregon and Washington. “I think the only thing CREST is allowed to own are vehicles,” she said.

Both Stan Sorenson and Jon Gudmundsen were notified and asked to respond to this story. Neither party had done so by publication date.