This project was initiated on July 1, 1984 and allows for initial landowner contacts, agreement development, project design, budgeting, and implementation for anadromous fish habitat improvement on privately owned lands within the John Day Basin.  

The purpose of the John Day Fish Habitat Enhancement Program is to enhance production of indigenous wild stocks of spring chinook and summer steelhead within the subbasin through habitat protection, enhancement and fish passage improvements. The initial Cooperative Agreements with landowners are for a term of 15 years.  The term of 15 years is mainly to try and give the riparian vegetation time to get established enough to be stable if and when domestic livestock is allowed back into the riparian areas.  From observations I would say that 90% of the expired Cooperative Agreements that the landowners have kept up the maintenance on the original riparian fences.  The program has offered in the past in high priority areas such as the head of Fox Creek to renew/rebuild and maintain for an additional 10 years.  The riparian buffer widths vary, but the minimum is approximately 30 feet above the ordinary high water line. The Fish Habitat Program goals are to improve as much riparian vegetation in the 15 year Cooperative Agreement that is signed by each landowner.  With the increase in vegetation it generally means that other areas of stream dynamics are being addressed also, such as bank/channel stability, temperature, Macro/Micro invertebrates, sediment transportation, magnitude of water runoff, protect existing habitat, control pollution sources, fisheries health and etc.  Plus all projects completed in the riparian areas help to manage recreation and tribal fisheries.

Under this new contract we will coordinate with 10 landowners (Johnson, Faulhaber, Ecotrust, ODFW, Mund, Speakman, Brown/Stafford, Neal, and Pryor properties) and construct approximately 13.45 miles of riparian protection fence to protect 450 acres and 7.00  miles of stream.   Construction will include approximately 35 gates and 15 watergaps at the sites identified below:
• 1.00 miles of riparian fence on Speakman property on Canyon Creek a tributary of the John Day River.
• 7.0 miles of riparian fence on Desolation Creek, plus install one cattle-guard, a tributary of the North Fork John Day River (Ecotrust property).
• 0.75 miles of riparian fence on Parrish Creek, a tributary of the Lower John Day River.
• 3.5 miles riparian fence on the MFJDR (Mund property).
• 1.2 miles riparian fence on Condon Canyon Creek, a tributary of  Lower John Day River (Faulhaber property).
• 1.0 miles on Long Creek/Neal property (Over site and Maintenance of this project).
•              Help with the Design on three projects Tex, Hay, and Murderers Creek's BDA's and instream structures and floodplain reconnection.

With the last bullet statement above the design on the three BDA project areas will be a combined effort between ODFW murderers Creek wildlife area personnel, ODFW Fish District, South Fork Watershed Council, Gilliam Soil and Water Conservation District, Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), OWEB, Grant Soil and Water Conservation District, Warm Springs Tribe, and Nick Bouwes from Utah State University.  All three projects will have a 30 %, 60%, and 90% design by the end of next summer 2018.  Installation to be completed in the 2019 work period.

Within all these new projects slated above, it takes considerable time to coordinate with the landowners on the Cooperative Agreement, fenceline alignment, gates, and water gap placements to help them better manage their properties with livestock and land usage.  The fish habitat personnel then GPS structure coordinates and stake the project out with landowner approval.  These GPS coordinates are given to Grant Soil and Water Conservation District (GSWCD) to map the general riparian fence layout. GSWCD advertises the opportunity to bid on the project in the local newspaper, set up the bid packets, and determine whether each contractor is qualified and has the proper licensing, bonding and insurance requirements for the project. Cultural surveys are arranged with BPA environmental compliance personnel. A pre-bid tour of the project area is given to the contractors so they can view the terrain, fence layout and design including all structures and ask any questions. Sealed bids are submitted to GSWCD by interested contractors by the due date specified on the bid packet and the project is then awarded to the lowest qualified bidder. The project  time frame is established depending on the length of the project, (typically we allow 3 weeks for each mile of fence to be constructed). The fish habitat personnel, habitat biologist/ senior technician oversee the progress and quality of the work completed on the projects. In some cases materials will also be delivered by ODFW personnel  to help save on contractor time/money and for  program efficiency, if ODFW personnel are working in the area.  At the end of the project the Fish Habitat personnel will complete a final walk through of the project and problem areas will be flagged and corrected  by the contractor before final payment is requested and paid by GSWCD through a sub contract.  Because the fish habitat program has to maintain the project for 15 years, the specifications to the riparian fence construction are closely monitored.  Photopoints are established at the beginning of each project and then retaken every three years.

The John Day Fish Habitat Program also has under contract the Grant County Weed Department.  Fish Habitat personnel when on riparian project sites keep an eye out for noxious weeds on the counties top ten weed list.  A small budget has been set aside to spray approximately 70 acres on projects currently under cooperative agreements. This has been a great benefit to our program to be able to spray weeds within the riparian area, if nothing else to show landowners that weeds can be maintained even in areas of high dispersal areas.

The John Day Fish Habitat enhancement program also maintains the existing riparian projects for the term of 15 years.  This is approximately around 290 miles or riparian fence associated with 69 different landowners over 11 different counties.  For example, We currently have 9 projects in Gilliam county that we maintain from our main headquarters in John Day, Oregon.  Just to get from John Day to Condon takes approximately three hours, then to get to half of the project sites is another hour.  On these days it takes two maybe three program personnel, and ATV's to cover as much ground as possible to get a single project area maintained and put back into workable order.  These are usually long days depending on wildlife, Spring run-off damage and numbers of trees that have fallen during wind storms or fire damaged areas during the summer months. There are typically trees/rocks that have fallen on project fences and structures that need fixing. In the summer months there are occasionally flash floods that go through an area which requires attention to the watergaps and mainline fences as well.  The program personnel has learned to cover more ground by dropping one person off and have them walk through sections that are only accessible by foot and then drive down a mile or so leave the ATV and leap frog to the lower end.  This saves time so personnel can work in one direction and not have to back track.  The program keeps track of where each day maintenance has been completed and if additional materials is need on the next visit it is written down.  The program has two full time positions, one 6 month (Half 6 months  fish Habitat and half 6 months Screens and Passage), one 5 month permanent seasonal position, and a 4 month secretarial position.  With constructing new projects and keeping up on the maintenance of the existing projects it is a never ending battle.

The Fish Habitat Program also coordinates on projects with many different agencies.  The projects in Gilliam county partner with GSWCD,  projects in Wheeler are associated with Wheeler Soil and Water Conservation District, and the John Day Fish Habitat Program also works with the Tribal entities of both Umatilla and Warm Springs tribes.  For example the project listed above for 2018 work period the Desolation Creek project works in conjunction with the Umatilla and Warm Springs tribes, North Fork Watershed council, Grant Soil and Water Conservation District, Umatilla National forest Service and the design firm Tetra-Tech.  This has been an ongoing cooperative project,  since 2015 through 2017  the John Day Fish Habitat Program has built14.26 miles of riparian fence, developed three gravity spring developments and installed one cattle-guard on this property.