Trout Unlimited in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, Grande Ronde Model Watershed, BPA and OWEB are implementing a second phase on Sheep Creek, in the Upper Grande Ronde.

The Sheep Creek Stewardship Project is located on Sheep Creek, a tributary to the Grande Ronde River. The project area includes 4.5 miles of the creek (RM 5.41-8.65).  

Sheep Creek and its meadow habitats are not in proper functioning ecological condition due to historic anthropogenic influences.  The overall goal of this project is to achieve proper ecological form and function of Sheep Creek and its meadows, and thereby enhance habitat for Snake River Basin Spring/Summer Chinook, Snake River Basin steelhead, resident redband trout, bull trout and numerous other aquatic and terrestrial species.  This includes habitat for beaver and other small mammal, floodplain ecosystem engineers.

This phase includes a mix of restoration and stewardship actions that will round out the project and set the system on a trajectory towards greater ecological health.  The actions include, material augmentation in stream to create wetland habitat and speed up aggradation, placement of woody debris and post-assisted beaver mimicry structures, riparian floodplain thinning, and the restoration of a compacted wetland.  Each of these actions will increase floodplain and channel complexity for Lower Snake River steelhead, Chinook and lamprey populations.

The Sheep Creek Stream and Floodplain Project kickstarted in 2019 and into 2020 with the first phase of restoration treatments. Approximately 5 miles of tributaries were treated too.  This funding request would support the project team in a long-term adaptive management and stewardship approach to healing the appropriate natural processes needed to set the system on a trajectory towards full ecological health.  This next phase supports new actions that are complimentary and build-upon past actions.