• View Currents: Your Voice for Clean Water Fall 2011 (PDF, 1.92 MB)

Two years after taking the leap into the business of restoring unhealthy creeks and streams, the Clark Fork Coalition now has a roadmap for getting this job done in one of the most critical reaches of the watershed — its headwaters.

As outlined in our new Aquatic Restoration Strategy for the Upper Clark Fork, we have an extraordinary opportunity for both ecological and economic recovery here. The upper basin—from its origins at Silver Bow Creek to its confluence with the Blackfoot—is undergoing a much-needed remodel through Superfund cleanups and the removal of Milltown Dam.

To ensure a successful healing process for the river and a solid return on investment for these multimillion dollar projects, we see an urgent need to focus restoration energies and resources on the lifelines of this system—namely, the tributaries that feed into the Upper Clark Fork River. Our Aquatic Restoration Strategy (ARS) is a detailed playbook for re-connecting the pieces to make this watershed whole again.

At the heart of the strategy lie three ideas:

1. Integrate. Rebuilding a healthy aquatic environment in the Upper Clark Fork will require
   a combination of efforts, such as re-watering dry reaches, rehabilitating degraded riparian habitat, and removing barriers to fish passage—projects that address all major water quality and habitat issues, not just those related to metals toxicity.
2. Start At the top. The best way to restore a healthy watershed is to start upstream and work down. We’ll focus our restoration resources initially on “Reach A” (defined as Warm Springs to Garrison) and the “Headwaters” sub-basins of the 3,700 square-mile Upper Clark Fork. (See map.) These two sub-basins are also the most heavily impacted of all the 7 sub-basins, where the impacts of 150 years of mining waste are compounded by agricultural, urban, and land-use stressors.
3. Partner For Success. There can be no solo acts on this ambitious agenda. We are committed to partnering with a diverse array of stakeholders, including ranchers, landowners, water users, elected officials, agencies, funders, rural communities, cities and recreational interests.

Our Strategy lays it all out, but in a nutshell we believe that by embracing these three ideas, we will see:

• 44 - 88 more cubic feet of water flowing in the Upper Clark Fork
• 30 fewer barriers blocking fish movement
• 120 more miles of high-quality stream habitat
• 5 more streams connected to the river
• $15 - $21 million going to work for the ecology and communities of the Clark Fork basin

This is a major effort with its share of challenges. But we believe it’s possible to create a world-class model of integrated restoration that delivers a healthy river system, generates sustained social and economic benefits, and reflects a shared community vision of how to live in, learn from, use and interact with the restored landscape for the long term.

Questions about the Aquatic Restoration Strategy, or interested in booking a presentation to your community group? Please contact Will McDowell, will at clarkfork.org. To download a copy, visit us at Clark Fork Coalition.

ARS in Action

Working Models: Win-Win Water Leasing
In 2005, the Coalition purchased a 2,300-acre cattle ranch situated in the heart of the Upper Clark Fork’s mining-impacted reach in the Deer Lodge Valley. Our aim is to explore and model how ecological cleanup and restoration—along with progressive land and water management practices—can improve the bottom-line for agricultural producers.

Like our neighbors, we rely on crop irrigation to do business. Our Dry Cottonwood Creek Ranch is currently set up for simple and low-tech flood irrigation: this method that brings water to the fields through pumping or gravity-fed diversions, and allows it to flow along the ground among the crops. With an eye toward our bottom-line—both financial and ecological—we are experimenting with new irrigation tools that have the potential to cut costs, generate revenue, and save water.

This July, we put a split-season water lease into place at Dry Cottonwood Creek Ranch—a pilot project we hope to scale up in future seasons. We shut down our irrigation diversions from Dry Cottonwood Creek and the Clark Fork River during the second half of the summer, which allows 7-10 cubic feet per second (cfs) of water to return to the river, and also connects a westslope cutthroat spawning tributary back to the Clark Fork. This split-season water lease generated income for the ranch, and will hopefully prove to be a model we can replicate elsewhere. We’ll continue to monitor in-stream flows and ranching operations through the fall.

Helping Fish Get By
In the fall, bull trout are on the move in western Montana, heading upstream into small tributaries to spawn. In the Upper Clark Fork, only a few strongholds for this native fish remain—including Wyman Gulch in the Flint Creek drainage. We’re working this summer to replace two culverts with fish-friendly versions, to allow for bull trout migration in this key tributary. The work should be completed by September 1—just in time for the annual move of this iconic species.

Beefing Up Riparian Vegetation
We’re working with the Watershed Restoration Coalition (WRC) and private landowners on a host of riparian improvement efforts along Cottonwood Creek, a key tributary to the Clark Fork that joins the main river at the town of Deer Lodge. In particular, an entirely new channel, including riparian vegetation improvements, will be built along a problematic 2,000-foot reach, located just upstream of I-90. Our hope is that the improvements made to Cottonwood Creek will also illustrate the multiple benefits of stream restoration for the landowners who live beside it—for instance, by re-constructing the channel to resemble its natural floodplain, this
stretch will likely fare better in high water years.

Thank you to Columbia Basin Water Transactions Program
A big note of thanks goes to our friends at the Columbia Basin Water Transactions Program
(CBWTP), which recently approved our pilot flow restoration project on Dry Cottonwood Creek at the Coalition’s working ranch in the Upper Clark Fork.

• by Clark Fork Coalition