Clear Creek Road Restoration
In the summer of 2010 restoration professionals were busy restoring fish and wildlife habitat near Clear Creek, a tributary of the Lewis River in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. The Gifford Pinchot Task Force helped secure funding from Ecotrust’s Whole Watershed Restoration Initiative and Wild Fish Conservancy and partnered with the Forest Service to remove eight miles of road. These roads were strategically identified for removal because they are in a key watershed for salmon recovery and benefit elk, gray wolves, and other wildlife by expanding the unroaded area around Spencer Ridge Roadless Area by 3,000 acres.
The Spencer Ridge Roadless Area, in which Clear Creek is located, is nestled between the Dark Divide and the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. Removing these roads will create a 3,000 acre area without roads to the east, south, and west of the Spencer Ridge Roadless Area, which will enhance connections between these two important core habitat zones. Spencer Ridge is considered an inventoried roadless area and is protected from road-building. Roadless areas are crucial for watershed and ecosystem health. For example, over half of the nation’s roadless areas supply water to downstream facilities that treat and distribute drinking water to the public (USFS 2000). They provide high-quality habitat for threatened species, contain important concentrations of old-growth forests and aquatic strongholds, and, in the absence of roads and other disturbances, provide a buffer against invasive species. By expanding the unroaded habitat around Spencer Ridge we have helped the recovery of salmon and resident fish and wildlife that depend on unroaded areas like elk, wolves, and wolverine.
In addition, these roads are located within specific land designations on the GPNF (Late Successional Reserve and Riparian Reserve) that are to be managed for the support and recovery of species that depend on healthy functioning streams and forestlands to thrive. Part of how roads are identified and prioritized for restoration is a consideration of access needs for recreation or other uses. These specific roads have limited access needs and are therefore ideal roads to target for restoration.
The removal of these roads not only benefits fish and wildlife, but also local communities through the direct employment of restoration contractors. A recent University of Oregon study estimates that between 13 and 29 jobs are created or retained, and more than $2.1 million in economic activity is generated, for every $1 million invested in watershed restoration (Nielson-Pincus 2010). Therefore restoration of these three roads, which was a $200,000 dollar investment, contributed 3-6 jobs and $420,000 in economic activity. The contractors that have so far been engaged hail from Randle and Glenwood Washington, small, local, rural communities that benefit from the economic impact.
In our summer 2010 newsletter we wrote about our progress implementing our restoration plan for the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. The Task Force assessed needs for salmon and steelhead recovery, predator recovery, and more to determine high priority areas for restoration and high priority restoration activities. Removal of the above roads was ranked as a high priority in the Task Force’s restoration plan for the recovery of wild salmon and steelhead as well as wolves and therefore takes us another step further in realizing our vision of a restored and healthy forest.
