Tribe continues restoration projects in Grays River

Grays River is a well-known waterway to Wahkiakum locals. It twists around farmland and flows through timberland in the western part of the county before meeting the Columbia River at Grays Bay. The upper Grays River watershed is surrounded by 95 percent timberland and has recently been the focus of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe's Habitat Restoration and Conservation Project efforts. The Tribe has been working to "restore complexity and biophysical connectivity" in the Grays Watershed, according to project details for the Grays 4C Restoration Project on the NOAA Fisheries website. On Tuesday, April 22, Peter Barber of the Cowlitz Tribe gave a presentation on the progress made in restoring the Grays Watershed. "The Cowlitz people's area of interest is from Bonneville Dam to the mouth of the Columbia, both Oregon and Washington, though we [focus] our efforts mostly on the Washington side," he said. Barber's team has been focusing on the Grays River Watershed. All of their work takes place in Pacific County, with the expectation that the benefits will flow downstream, so to speak, to Wahkiakum residents. "Our goal in the upper watershed is to trap the sediment," said Barber. This includes addressing two debris jams that block fish passage and impede sediment flow and managing wood placement throughout the upper headwaters.

An abundance of large trees used to stand in the east fork of the Grays before timber harvesting began in that area and long before forest practices were introduced. In 1942, there was still primarily untouched forest but, by the 1960s, hardly any old-growth trees remained. When the 1970s arrived, the riverbanks and surrounding area were nearly barren. In just 25 years, the entire area was clear-cut down to the water's edge, resulting in a severe lack of in-stream structures and nearly eliminating complex rearing habitats critical for winter steelhead and coho salmon to successfully lay and incubate eggs. Today, the trees found in this area are young, 10 years or less, and still unestablished.

The lack of timber in and around the watershed has other consequences, such as sediment flow, which directly impacts the frequency of flooding. The watershed already has a geology that indicates a high sediment potential, with its highly erosive sedimentary rock, heavy rains, and steep hills surrounding it. Combining these circumstances with the lack of naturally occurring wood structures has led to excessive sediment transport, raising the river channel and increasing flooding. Barber described the sediment load in the Grays Watershed as being 100 times higher than it has ever been historically, and this heavy sediment flow is also wreaking havoc on the fish. With limited habitat for juvenile fish to live and grow, fewer and fewer are becoming strong enough to return from the ocean and spawn. The habitat available in this river has no complexity. Spawning salmon and steelhead are struggling to incubate their eggs properly, and these newly hatched fish have been found suffocating due to the sediment.

The Cowlitz Indian Tribe has found that the problem starts upriver and has begun placing complex wood structures in the upper areas of these rivers and watersheds whose surrounding areas have been overforested. The tribe's team buys conifers like Douglas fir or Sitka spruce and uses them to create engineered logjams. They've done this in the Lower East Fork of the Grays River, Mitchell Creek, and other rivers in Southwest Washington. This process has already produced results. Placing these engineered log jams has allowed complexity to form and has created space for diverse ecosystems to develop. Areas of the river that transport sediment due high water flow lack the complexity needed for fish species.

Because of overforestation, it will take generations to restore the damage that took less than 30 years to inflict. While some positive outcomes may already be seen, Barber clarified that significant positive effects on the fish population and sediment flow will take decades. Despite the timeline, the Cowlitz Indian Tribe expects their work in the river will "drive biological outcomes, including increased spawning success and improved juvenile survival rates for salmon and steelhead populations."

The project Barber described in his presentation is in the lower East Fork Grays and is scheduled to finish this summer. Soon after that project wraps, they begin the Upper East Fork Grays Restoration. The first construction phase will install one mile of conifer logs and rootwad attached trees via helicopter in an upper East Fork Grays tributary, which they've named Huckleberry Creek. According to Barber, the project approach is "intensive and extensive, with the goal to reconnect floodplains to store mobile fine sediment and create complex rearing and spawning habitat to benefit salmon and steelhead populations."

To learn more about the Cowlitz Indian Tribe's restoration work in the region, visit cowlitz.org/natural-resource.