Protecting Land on the West's Outstanding Rivers

With backing from GlobalGiving donors, Western Rivers Conservancy (WRC) is permanently protecting land along outstanding rivers across the western United States. Your gift supports the core costs of purchasing land and placing properties into permanent conservation stewardship. Your contribution is dedicated to such activities as: developing relationships with willing seller landowners; preserving salmon and wildlife habitat; and creating new hiking trails, boating access and recreational opportunities.

Thanks to your contribution, WRC is:

- Protecting Catherine Creek, a top priority Oregon stream for Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead.

- Returning flows to the Little Cimarron River, a prized Colorado trout stream.

Oregon’s Catherine Creek:

In February 2014, Western Rivers Conservancy purchased a reach of Oregon’s Catherine Creek, a critical salmon- and steelhead-bearing tributary of the Grande Ronde and Snake rivers. The stream reach that passes through the 545-acre property that WRC acquired holds some of the most important spawning and rearing habitat in the Columbia Basin—habitat with tremendous restoration potential.

The spring Chinook and summer steelhead that inhabit Catherine Creek belong to larger populations of Snake River Chinook and steelhead that are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The populations in Catherine Creek are especially at-risk, and the creek has been identified as one of the highest priorities for fisheries restoration in the Snake and Columbia River basins. The stretch of Catherine Creek that flows through the property also holds bull trout, likewise listed as threatened under the ESA.

It is rare for a Catherine Creek property of this size to come up for sale, and WRC jumped at the opportunity to play a role in restoring this critically important stream. We plan to convey the property to the Umatilla Tribe, which seeks to restore side-channels and stream complexity to enhance spawning habitat and improve survival rates for over-wintering smolts. Once completed, the project will improve odds for some of the Pacific Northwest’s most imperiled fish and benefit the Columbia River fishery as a whole.

Colorado’s Little Cimarron:

Since 2012, Western Rivers Conservancy has been working to reestablish year-round flows on the Little Cimarron River, an outstanding Colorado trout stream and tributary of the Gunnison River. In January 2014, we took a major leap forward in our effort to realize that vision when we conveyed the water rights from a farm we purchased to Colorado Water Trust (CWT).

The Little Cimarron is a gem of a stream, flowing 25 miles from the Uncompahgre Wilderness to the main-stem Cimarron, which meets the Gunnison River at the spectacular Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. The upper 13 miles of the Little Cimarron have all the qualities of a wild trout stream. Its waters are cold and clear and teem with naturally reproducing rainbow and brook trout. Once the river reaches the irrigation ditches of the lower Pleasant Valley, though, it often flows only intermittently from late summer to early fall.

When a farm with senior water rights on the Little Cimarron went into bank foreclosure in 2012, WRC and CWT identified a unique opportunity to put water back into the “Little Cim.” WRC purchased the farm with the goal of working with CWT to dedicate the water “in-stream” during the driest months of the year. Now that we have conveyed the water rights to CWT, the Trust can pursue an irrigation plan that would allow for continued agricultural operations while keeping water in the river when the river needs it most.

The project aims to reestablish perennial flows, reconnect vital fish habitat, reduce water temperatures in the lower river and allow trout to repopulate the formerly de-watered reach of the stream. For WRC, it’s a unique and exciting project—and one with potential to serve as a model for stream conservation not just in Colorado, but throughout the West.

Conclusion

With the support of GlobalGiving donors, Western Rivers Conservancy is expanding our efforts to protect riverlands for fish, wildlife and people. Please contact David Wilkins at 503-241-0151, ext. 214 (or dwilkins@westernrivers.org) for further information. Thank you.

• Western Rivers Conservancy: Project Photos (PDF)