Watershed councils work with private landowners and a host of other partners to do voluntary projects that improve water quality and fish and wildlife habitat while improving or maintaining productivity of the land. Planting streamside trees and shrubs, reducing erosion and runoff, installing streamside fencing, replacing fish-blocking culverts, removing invasive vegetation, and restoring wetlands are just a few examples of projects that private landowners undertake with the help of watershed councils.
Current Tillamook Bay Watershed Council projects include:
Wilson River Restoration Project
The TBWC is working in partnership with the Oregon Department of Forestry, Bonneville Power Administration, and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to improve over four acres of riparian areas along the Wilson River.
Munson Creek
The Munson Creek Habitat Enhancement project brought together nine diverse partners to remove six culverts and replace them with two bridges and two new culverts to improve fish passage to three miles of upstream habitat. Habitat enhancement and riparian restoration activities were also conducted. The council worked with Tillamook High School to develop a three year monitoring program for the natural resources science classes.
Tillamook River LFA
Along with previous or on-going work in the Miami, Wilson, Trask and Kilchis watersheds, the Tillamook Bay Watershed Council is developing a restoration plan for the Tillamook River basin. Potential salmon habitat improvement projects might include riparian plantings for shade or culvert upgrades for passage. Before getting started, however, the council will need to understand more about what limits salmon survival in the basin. The council and its partners will examine existing scientific data gathered over the past few years, as well as completing their own study of the Tillamook and its major tributaries (such as Fawcett, Munson, Mills, Bewley, Sutton, Joe, Beaver, Esther, Tomlinson, Simmons, and Killam creeks). As part of the study, contractors will walk the entire Tillamook River basin and evaluate habitat condition for Coho and Steelhead salmon. The information gathered by the council will help it to suggest the best activities that may maintain or restore salmon habitat while supporting the values of landowners in the watershed.
Data Synthesis
In an effort to better prioritize projects and council efforts, the TBWC is creating a data synthesis project that brings together the extensive data that has been collected in the watershed over the past decades. This project will provide a living database, maps, and ongoing ranking system that will synthesize existing and future data in order to evaluate high priority basins for project implementation.
Cruiser Creek/ Elkhorn
In 2004, the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) began discussing opportunities to collaborate on habitat enhancement within the Elkhorn drainage. Straddling ODF and BLM land, the 6th field Elkhorn Watershed lies within the Trask River Watershed, one of the five major sub-basins in the Tillamook Bay Watershed. The first such collaborative effort within the region, the project offered a unique opportunity to leverage the efforts of state and federal landowners towards common restoration goals. Local watershed organizations such as the council and the Tillamook Estuaries Partnership were brought in to help manage the project across state, federal, and private landowners. Implementation occurred in the Cruiser Creek sub-basin in 2005, replacing three fish passage barriers, improving 1.5 miles of instream habitat and 5 acres of riparian habitat, and decommissioning 3.5 miles of road. A second phase of habitat enhancement is planned for 2008 to improve instream habitat along three miles of stream, with helicopter placement of large wood.
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