185 



district staff have developed a sidecast pullback rating system to 

 determine where high hazard conditions occur and to remove those 

 hazards (11) . 



Where existing damage exists there is no shortage of 

 management/enhancement techniques to address problems (12). These 

 include such activities as tree planting in riparian areas, fencing 

 of riparian areas (to exclude cattle) , log and boulder placement in 

 streams for increased spavming and rearing habitat, use of brush 

 and tree bundles for stream cover, off-channel pool development, 

 construction of instream gabions, use of tree tops for rip rap, 

 construction of sediment traps following wildfires, blasting to 

 develop pools in roc)t-bottom channels, removal of fish-passage 

 barriers, and construction of fish ladders. Many of these 

 enhancement techniques need much more research to determine their 

 value and the proper conditions for their application. The recent 

 history of woody debris clean-ups and log removals, once 

 recommended and now condemned, suggest the need to be careful about 

 "enhancement" approaches. 



V WATERSHED HEALTH CAN RECOVER 



Watersheds can recover from disturbances as a result of 

 improved management practices, and the inherent resiliency of the 

 watershed systems to natural disturbances. 



A. South Fork of Salmon 



The South Fork of Salmon River, described earlier, had 

 documented increases in gravel fines and filling of pools, at least 

 partly as a result of management activities in the watershed. A 

 moratorium on management activities and watershed restoration work, 

 followed by a period forest management under new guidelines, 

 resulted in cleaning out of fines in pools and reduced fines in 

 gravels (13) . 



B. Alsea Watershed Study 



The Alsea Watershed in coastal Oregon was one of the first 

 experiments on the use of buffers and stream management zones to 

 protect water quality. As part of that study one small watershed 

 was nearly completely clearcut to the stream and then burned. 

 Stream temperature and sediment increased and dissolved oxygen 

 decreased dramatically. Streamwater dissolved oxygen returned to 

 near saturation when fine organic material was removed or flushed 

 from the stream. Stream temperatures rapidly returned to normal 

 following recovery of riparian vegetation (4). Work by Andrus and 

 Froehlich has shown that, particularly for narrow stream in 

 productive coastal locations, any temperature increases resulting 

 from removal of riparian vegetation by fire or harvesting quickly 

 racovers (14) . 



