This weekend Mckenzie-Upper Willamette chapter of Trout Unlimited continued our outreach to the Calapooia Watershed Council and assisted in their restoration efforts. We removed blackberries and english ivy along the banks of the Calapooia hoping improve riparian conditions by giving native plant communities a chance to thrive.

The Calapooia is a small river–a west side Cascade tributary that heads near Tidbits Mountain and runs parallel to the Mckenzie to the north. Historically, the river was home to a fair population of spring chinook and was apparently the nothernmost distribution of native winter steelhead in the Willamette basin. Steelhead populations remain stable but typically the number of returning chinook can be counted on one hand. Though the upper river is undammed two impoundments on the lower river laid waste to salmon populations. Brownsville dam was removed last summer. Here’s the former dam site:

With the removal of Brownsville Dam and its fish slaughtering ladder, Sodom dam on the lower river remains the only barrier to fish passsage. Check out the old “fish ladder” at the site of the former Brownsville dam:

With the removal of Brownsville Dam and the inevitable improvements (at the very least) to Sodom Dam the future looks better for Calapooia salmon and steelhead than it has for a century.  Oregon Fish and Wildlife hopes to improve chinook number to around 1000 returning adults per year.  The upper watershed is almost all in Weyerhaueser ownership and despite being heavily logged the river remains beautiful. The only thing it needs is some large woody debris to give the chinook an assist. It also looks like it might harbor a fair sized trout or two . . . when it opens I’ll find out