The Upper Grande Ronde River BSR UGR-20 is a critical and priority reach for ESA-listed spring-summer Chinook salmon and other aquatic resources and has been a focal restoration reach with multiple historic and recent actions implemented to enhance and restore habitat. The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) and Wallowa-Whitman National Forest (WWNF) continue to collaborative in partnership to enhance and restore fishery resources and achieve River Vison and First Foods objectives in the Upper Grande Ronde basin.

The goal of project sponsors is to protect, enhance, and restore functional floodplain, channel, and watershed processes to provide sustainable and healthy habitat for aquatic First Food species.

Objectives are a means of achieving stated goals and include 1. Habitat protection and conservation, 2. Floodplain connectivity, 3. Channel morphology, 4. Instream structure and complexity, 5. Riparian restoration, 6. Water Quality, and 7. Fish passage.  

Realignment of sections of the USFS roads 5125/5138 along the Grande Ronde River supports future, broader restoration strategies that promote floodplain connectivity, expand wetland and riparain habitat, and promote alluvial processes that create and maintain quality spawning and rearing habitat.

1.07 miles of road (0.47 mi of NFSR 5125, 0.60 mi of NFSR 5138) will be relocated from the floodplain to locations above and/or at the toe of the historical floodplain to restore approximately 12 acres of the Grande Ronde River's floodplain.

The decommissioning of existing draw bottom road segments will not occur within this contract. They will remain in place to support future habitat restoration and enhancements and then decommissioned once those actions are complete.