Habitat Restoration Lecture

Habitat along the Siletz River.\Photo by Dennis White.

The MidCoast Watersheds Council (MCWC) is looking within for its next speaker.  Presenting at the group’s meeting on Thursday, Aug. 1, 6:30 p.m. in the Newport Visual Arts Center (777 N.W. Beach Dr.), Room 205, will be Council Coordinator Evan Hayduk.  His topic:  “Habitat Restoration Work What Benefits Can We Expect for Salmon and Watersheds? “  The talk is free and open to all.

Hayduk will specifically focus on restoration in the Siletz River Basin, which supports one of the most diverse assemblages of fish species on the Oregon coast.   The Siletz watershed is about to see the benefits of a major culvert replacement project. Located on North Creek—a tributary to Drift Creek—this project will make over 13 miles of high quality habitat within the Siuslaw National Forest fully accessible to Chinook and coho salmon, steelhead, coastal cutthroat trout, lamprey, freshwater mussels, and other aquatic organisms for the first time in 62 years. Hayduk will provide an update on the ongoing project, and provide context to one of the biggest restoration projects completed during his three year tenure.

Restoration work is at times as much of an art as it is a science, and is never finished until natural processes are restored. Culvert replacements like that at North Creek are just one of a suite of actions the MidCoast Watersheds Council and partners take on the ground to restore habitat and watershed scale processes, supporting salmon and everything else that depend on them. Other actions may include large wood placements, dike removal, invasive species management, and riparian planting and fencing. It takes understanding site characteristics and working in partnership with the landowners, other organizations, and agencies to determine the right actions for any particular project and to see these tasks through. Years after these projects wrap up, MCWC continues monitoring them to ensure that the actions taken are working to achieve the desired goals. Hayduk’s presentation will shed light on the benefits expected or seen from various restoration projects, illustrating before and after conditions on the ground.  Evan came to MCWC and Oregon’s central coast after almost a decade of work restoring riparian, wetland, sub-alpine, prairie, forested and oak savanna ecosystems in Washington state.

For information, contact Ari Blatt, the MCWC’s restoration program assistant, at (541) 265-9195, ari@midcoastwc.org.