Project Partners- Cascade Land Conservancy – project sponsor and manager
- Kittitas Environmental Education Network – provision of volunteers for planting and monitoring
- Mid-Columbia Fisheries Enhancement Group – coordination of planting and fencing efforts
- Kittitas County Conservation District – planting and monitoring assistance
- WSU Extension – management of flash grazing, monitoring of available forage
- John Eaton – rancher lessee, management of flash grazing
- Washington State Department of Parks and Recreation – landowner
Grant FundsNational Fish and Wildlife Federation
Pioneers in Conservation
Grant Program
with program support from
American Farmland Trust
Problem…- Farmers and ranchers in Eastern Washington are reluctant to embrace stream buffer programs that require total livestock exclusion from the riparian area.
- Riparian planting and livestock exclusion often lead to invasive or noxious weed establishment, causing a management challenge for the landowner.
Project Abstract - ¼ mile of stream = traditional livestock exclusion and riparian planting
- ¼ mile of stream = flash grazing
- compare the relative effectiveness for:
- weed prevention
- cost
- forage availability
- Hypothesis: flash grazing = effective tool in riparian management
- Result = compromise solution to an ongoing conflict between habitat improvement and economic livelihood
- This method will result in less economic loss for farmers and ranchers AND better invasive weed control
Goals- Enhance shade, floodplain roughness, and in-stream structure through riparian plantings along ½ mile of Wilson Creek.
Habitat in the proposed restoration reach not functioning:
- Temperature TMDL
- No LWD
- Riparian cover severely limited
- Channel constrained by topography
- Reduced floodplain roughness
Goals- Plant 16,000 trees and shrubs
- increase shade
- increase floodplain roughness
- increase the potential for in-stream structure
- provide cooler water
High flood = sediment scour
Increased roughness = sediment deposit
Flood water infiltration= cooler water
Process- Test the relative efficacy of flash grazing versus standard livestock exclusion
- Two treatment reaches and two control reaches
- Fenced at 150 feet from streamside
- Planting densities will be the same: average spacing of 5-feet on center
- Riparian plantings of Ponderosa pine, black cottonwood, willow, dogwood, and golden currant
- Volunteers and crews will plant in fall 2009 and spring 2010
- Monitoring over next 10 years