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A Practical Restoration Model for Restoring the Sprague River Valley

Mike Edwards
Klamath Basin Coordinator
Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program
USFWS Region 8
Klamath Falls, OR

 Authors:
-- Damion Ciotti, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
-- Jared McKee, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
-- Wally MacFarlane, Utah State University
-- Cashe C. Rasmussen, Utah State University
-- Dr. Joseph M. Wheaton, Utah State University
-- Mike Edwards, US. Fish and Wildlife Service

We developed a model to assist the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program in prioritizing process-based restoration projects in the Sprague River watershed in the southern Oregon Cascades. The Sprague River has a significant amount of floodplain levees and irrigation ditches which have disrupted floodplain and channel connectivity important for fish habitat.  The model identifies floodplain spaces disconnected by infrastructure versus areas disconnected by incision alone. In doing so, it provides practitioners with a planning tool for prioritizing where to modify or remove infrastructure (e.g., levees or ditches) versus opportunities to apply “low-tech” approaches of installing wood structures delineated by the Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool. Projects may be prioritized based on the quantity of floodplain space they reconnect or their location relative to important habitat areas for two endangered species of suckers. The model is an important tool for partners and landowners to communicate the goal of restoring a dynamic river corridor and not just a single stable river channel or discrete habitat. The model may also be used to inform restoration planning and track progress at the watershed scale for public funded programs. This was a collaborative effort between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Utah State University. This approach may be important for other stream and river systems facing a combination of infrastructure constraints in addition to lack of wood structure.

About Mike Edwards
Mike Edwards is the Klamath Basin Coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program.  Mike has led the Klamath Basin private lands restoration program since 2012, prior to his current position he was a fisheries biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska.  A recent focus of Mike’s work in the Klamath Basin has been incorporating a processed based restoration philosophy into the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program and expanding program accountability methods. Mike obtained his Master in Biology from Tennessee Technology University and has worked as a fisheries/habitat restoration biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service for over 20 years.