ADAM PEARSON
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it April 21, 2006

UMPQUA — The bedrock channels of Hubbard and Buffalo creeks are smooth as granite and often angled like water park slides — funneling water in chutes that migrating fish can’t navigate for spawning.

But that was before last fall.

A few miles south of the main Umpqua River, where Buffalo Creek flows into Hubbard Creek, newly placed boulder clusters provide current breaks for migrating fish. Debris collects in front of boulders and creates natural cover for juvenile fish to hide under from predators. And pebbles rest in pools behind boulders as spawning grounds where none existed before.

“What we’re doing here is mimicking nature,” said Dan Jenkins, habitat restoration biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife office in Roseburg. “Prior to it, there was nothing here. It was just bedrock.”

The fish habitat improvement project replaces debris that was taken out of the channels decades ago, when it was believed that faster-moving water was more beneficial to spawning habitat.

“It turned out that was not the case,” said Bob Kinyon, executive director for Partnership for the Umpqua Rivers.

When fish biologists realized that migrating fish need debris in stream beds to hide and rest behind, ODFW and Partnership for the Umpqua Rivers came together to improve fish habitat on public and private lands.

Landowners who see a need for habitat improvement in streams that pass through their property can contact either agency to survey the situation.

In the fall of 2004, Sandy Clifford contacted Partnership for the Umpqua Rivers — which was then known as the Umpqua Basin Watershed Council — and informed it that coho salmon were unable to migrate from Hubbard Creek and into the opening of Buffalo Creek adjacent to her house.

The tributary’s opening is steep and narrow, with a torrent of water passing through it. She said if a fish made it past the torrent, it often found itself getting swept back down the chute after not being able to find a spot to rest.

Above the chute, water moved rapidly across bedrock so smooth “you could skateboard down it,” Clifford said.

So Jenkins surveyed the situation. He found only 40 yards of spawning habitat in 14 miles of Hubbard Creek, upstream from the main Umpqua River and above Buffalo Creek. And he also found the mouth of Buffalo Creek to be swift, a challenge for fish to get past and reach a couple of miles of spawning habitat above it.

“It was good habitat but the fish couldn’t access it,” Jenkins said of the rest of Buffalo Creek.

Clifford had lived in her house for a couple of years before contacting Partnership for the Umpqua Rivers about the migration problem fish had in Buffalo Creek. Each fall she noticed about 50 salmon collected in a pool at the opening of the creek, repeatedly trying to swim up the chute.

Sometimes a fish would be successful, but it would eventually get swept away because there was more swift water to deal with and nowhere to rest.

Hubbard and Buffalo creeks flow mostly through private lands that were cleared for development many years ago. Without thick forest on either side of the creeks, the chances for the creeks to collect fallen trees and debris as natural fish habitat over the years were greatly lessened.

Last summer, ODFW and a habitat-improvement crew placed boulders in Hubbard Creek — below and above Buffalo Creek — and also in Buffalo Creek above the chute.

A couple of months later, Clifford noticed coho salmon passing the Buffalo Creek chute and staying above it.

“There’s a lot more pools for them to rest in before making it up that chute,” Clifford said of Hubbard Creek’s new conditions.

Since boulders were placed, Jenkins said debris and pebbles collected at a much higher rate than expected. This year’s early floods pushed debris downstream and deposited it around boulders at a rate that would have normally taken about three or four years to collect.

The boulders’ size — with some averaging 1.5 to 2 cubic yards, at a minimum requirement of 1 cubic yard — allowed them to stay in place during the floods.

On Wednesday, salmon fry could be seen swimming in pools behind boulder clusters and underneath debris in Hubbard and Buffalo creeks. They were the spawn of salmon that had navigated the creeks just a few months before.

“That’s our future swimming around in there,” Jenkins said.

You can reach reporter Adam Pearson at 957-4213 or by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .