One rainy Friday afternoon in October 2019, a few of us from the farm took some time off to join several community members for a field trip hosted by the Luckiamute Watershed Council. We were treated to a firsthand look at a multi-year $400,000 stream restoration project—all going on just up the road from us on the South Fork of our very own Pedee Creek!
We assembled in the parking lot of the Pedee Community Church and were met by Kristen Larson, executive director of the Luckiamute Watershed Council (LWC). She told us a bit about LWC, which is a volunteer organization committed to learning about, and improving “local water quality and habitat conditions” in our area. According to her, this particular project is a partnership that includes local forest landowners (Forests Forever, Starker Forests, and Hancock Forests), Western Oregon University, and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The shared goal is to create a healthier environment for native fish along nearby Pedee Creek—particularly the endangered steelhead run on the South Fork of Pedee Creek.
After being issued hard hats and hearing protection, we piled into a pair of vehicles and drove up the valley to take a closer look at the project.
Upon arriving at the worksite, we were met by LWC Project Manager Jean-Paul “JP” Zagarola who was kind enough to take time out of his busy day to show us around and give us an update us on the project, as well as answer our questions.
While JP talked about the project, a construction team worked busily just a stone’s throw in front of us. The team consisted of a private contractor running a massive log loader (similar to one of those massive excavators you see on construction projects) and a hydrologist from the BLM standing in the creek in waders. Communicating mostly by radio, they were installing a series of interlocking 50- to 60-foot-long logs in the creek, part of a larger network of roughly two-dozen similar wooden structures designed to create a healthier habitat for local fish. The logs were douglas-fir trees that had been recently thinned nearby and then carefully placed over a roughly three-mile stretch of the South Fork of Pedee Creek.
This new bridge reopened over a mile of historic upstream spawning beds. 
Upstream of the new bridge has been inaccessible to fish for decades.
JP explains the log structures and how it all is supposed to work. 
These logs have been intentionally placed in the streambed to slow down winter water flows and trap gravel and sediment to make healthy spawning grounds for fish.
From there we traveled a short distance up to the road where JP and Kristen showed us the first of two new bridges being to replace undersized and failing culverts so fish can swim unimpeded (the second bridge is planned for 2020 or 2021).
Our tour concluded with a brief close-up look at a more extensive fallen log network, again designed to promote a healthier creek environment for local fish.
In addition to all these measures, according to JP and Kristen, the LWC is replanting the stream banks with native conifers (douglas-firs) to provide needed shade for creek-dwelling fish. Decades from now, the hope is that the creek’s ecosystem will once again be self-sustaining, with older creek-side douglas-fir trees falling into the creek and establishing these log barriers naturally—without human intervention—just as they did for millennia before commercial logging began in this valley in the 1860s.
This was an enjoyable outing. Not only was it a nice way to spend a wet Friday afternoon, but as more than one person commented on the tour, it was encouraging in this day and age of political turmoil and infighting to see a diverse group of people and organizations come together to help restore and protect our fragile environment.