The Lostine River Mile (RM) 5.7 project area is located on the Lostine River immediately west of the town of Lostine in Wallowa County, Oregon; Wallow Atlas WLL3, Tier 1.  The project reach includes approximately 0.4 miles of Lostine River main channel and associated floodplain, which is exclusively on private land located upstream (south) of the Caudle Lane bridge.

Habitat conditions within the project reach have been negatively impacted by floodplain development, levee construction, and bank armoring, which have led to simplified channel conditions and floodplain disconnection over time. Additionally, a steep bluff is located midway along the project reach on river right, has been contributing fine sediment to the river, one of several documented limiting habitat factors to a multitude of fish and other aquatic species present in the Lostine River.

An extensive amount of restoration work has occurred in the Lostine River over the past two decades to amend a suite of issues that have resulted from a lack of natural riverine processes and function, as well as anthropogenic induced impairments. These restoration efforts include but are not limited to, the replacement of several partial fish passage barriers, establishment and continuation of a long-standing minimum flow agreement, irrigation efficiency upgrades, and floodplain reconnection efforts similar to the proposed project. Much of this restoration work was initiated based on compelling fisheries research data collected by ODFW, NPT, and other local natural resource practitioners. These data sets include Chinook salmon redd surveys, juvenile out-migrant trapping, adult radio telemetry tracking, and flow data, among other analyses. These, and other various indicators derived through research, have been instrumental in identifying reach specific areas in need of river restoration and/or enhancement within the Lostine River by providing trends in biological and physical information over time.

In addition to local empirical data, the Wallowa Atlas Restoration Prioritization Process (Atlas) developed by BPA, ranked the lower Lostine River as a Tier 1 subbasin – which is deemed the highest priority for restoration. Within the last decade, Atlas has been implemented in several major basins throughout Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and now functions as the predominant watershed restoration plan for the NE Oregon region. This in-depth and collaborative tool is used to synthesize critical information such as limiting habitat factors, fish utilization, channel geomorphology, and other factors to strategically identify and prioritize targeted restoration actions and locations. The overarching project intent is to increase productivity, abundance, and distribution of Snake River spring/summer Chinook Salmon, Snake River summer steelhead, Pacific Lamprey, and Bull Trout.  Relevant primary Limiting Habitat Factors in the lower Lostine River include 1) Floodplain Condition, 2) Instream Structural Complexity, 3) Increased Sediment Quantity, 4) Temperature, 5) Decreased Water Quantity, and 6) Riparian Vegetation.

Considering these limiting factors the following Atlas high priority restoration actions were determined to be most effective in improving spawning, rearing, and migration of key ESA listed species within the project reach:

•    Channel reconstruction
•    Pool development
•    Riffle construction
•    Levee modification
•    Restoration of floodplain topography and vegetation
•    Perennial and secondary side channel creation/reactivation
•    Floodplain wetland enhancement
•    Riparian planting
•    LWD placement

The goals of the project are to improve floodplain and instream habitat conditions for ESA-listed Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss), Bull Trout (Salvelinus confluentus), and potentially re-introduced Coho Salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) and Pacific Lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus). Specifically, the project design intends to restore the Lostine River to a more natural condition by constructing a new, multi-threaded channel network in the floodplain, filling portions of the existing main channel, and adding large wood structures and riparian plantings. The manipulation of the sediment dynamics from the existing transport reach to that of a response reach is key to achieving and maintaining sustained change and channel dynamics over time.  The proposed design would more closely resemble the historic channel and floodplain, and is expected to improve channel function and aquatic habitat quality.

Project partners include the Grande Ronde Model Watershed (GRMW) and Bonneville Power Administration (BPA).