The John Day is the nation’s second longest free-flowing river in the contiguous United States and the longest containing entirely unsupplemented runs of anadromous fish.  Located in eastern Oregon, the basin drains over 8,000 square miles, Oregon’s fourth largest drainage basin, and incorporates portions of eleven counties.  Originating in the Strawberry Mountains near Prairie City, the John Day River flows 284 miles in a northwesterly direction, entering the Columbia River approximately four miles upstream of the John Day dam.  With wild runs of spring Chinook salmon and summer steelhead, westslope cutthroat, and redband and bull trout, the John Day system is truly a basin with national significance.

The majority of the John Day basin was ceded to the Federal government in 1855 by the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon (Tribes).  In 1997, the Tribes established an office in the basin to coordinate restoration projects, monitoring, planning and other watershed activities on private and public lands.  Once established, the John Day Basin Office (JDBO) formed a partnership with the Grant Soil and Water Conservation District (GSWCD) and the Wheeler Soil and Water Conservation Districts(WSWCD), which subcontract the majority of the construction implementation activities for these projects from the JDBO.  

The GSWCD/WSWCD completes the landowner contact, preliminary planning, engineering design, permitting, construction contracting, and construction implementation phases of most projects.  The JDBO completes the planning, grant solicitation/defense, environmental compliance, administrative contracting, monitoring, and reporting portion of the program.  Most phases of project planning, implementation, and monitoring are coordinated with the private landowners and basin agencies, such as the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Oregon Water Resources Department.