The CTUIR’s North Fork John Day Fisheries Enhancement Project (The Project) works to protect and enhance physical and biological process and in turn habitat to improve the natural production of indigenous, Mid-Columbia River (MCR) Evolutionary Significant Unit (ESU) summer steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) listed as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act (ESA), spring Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), and Pacific Lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus) within the North Fork of the John Day River Basin. Bonneville Power Administration approved a CTUIR funding request in 2000 with initial on-the-ground implementations occurring in 2001. Restoration actions were initially undertaken within lower Camas Creek tributaries (Snipe and Owens Creeks), Deer Creek and the Lower North Fork John Day River. Over time however, the Project identified three focus basins (Camas, Desolation, and Granite Creeks) for which analysis and actions plans have been developed to guide restoration actions.

Focus basins including Camas, Desolation, and Granite Creeks were identified in 2006 ISRP Geographic Review based upon basin condition, qualities, and potential for maximizing benefits. Selection was also based upon subbasin plans, recovery plans, and regional priorities of CTUIR’s co-managers and collaborators. These focal basins have been carried forward through subsequent ISRP reviews, in part, to avoid a scattergun and opportunistic approach to restoration.

Focal basins contain a mix of privately held and publicly managed lands still influenced by past land management practices that affect each basin somewhat differently. However, past and current grazing, timber harvest, and transportation infrastructure development and maintenance influence all basins. The most intensive and possibly extensive disturbance occurred in the Granite Creek basin which was extensively turned over by placer and dredge ming activities prior to the early 1940s or is still being influenced by historic lode mining. The U.S. Forest Service and private landowners are currently dealing with legacy issues associated with heavy metal contamination from lode mines. Restoration prioritization within focal areas evolved from opportunistic efforts on individual properties to the use of agency derived basin specific action plans. Around 2015 the CTUIR began developing subbasin prioritization largely based on BPA’s ATLAS framework until the John Day Basin Partnership’s ATLAS based aquatic prioritization was developed for the entire John Day River basin. The partnership will soon produce an ATLAS based uplands prioritization for the entire John Day River basin. Restoration practitioners are now basing priorities on these documents. CTUIR is now undertaking larger reach scale projects with multiple participants.

Documents upon which focal basin selection were based and John Day Basin Partnership prioritizations have and will continue to support the CTUIR’s First Foods Policy implemented through the Umatilla River Vision and Upland Visions. Our approach to habitat restoration is rooted in the CTUIR’s First Foods Policy and Umatilla River Vision. The First Foods Policy identifies food groups integral to the tribe’s religion and culture while the Umatilla River Vision outlines a framework for process-based analysis using five primary touchstones (Hydrology, Geomorphology, Aquatic Biota, Riparian Vegetation, and Connectivity). The framework has been adopted by the CTUIR’s Department of Natural Resources for all management and restoration actions. The First Foods Policy, Umatilla River Vision and Upland Vision are inherently consistent with the strategies and objectives outlined in the John Day Subbasin Plan and other planning and recovery documents.

Thus far, habitat has been improved through nine conservation agreements, nine complete or partial barriers to passage removed, 515 Km and 8,138 acres of stream channel and floodplain habitats improved, and two assessments and one action plan have been developed to guide restoration actions. Work will continue with the Camas, Desolation, and Granite Creek basins until priorities guide our work elsewhere.

Our 2026 efforts will focus on finishing up the Bull Run Creek RM3 restoration implementation, Desolation Creek Reach 3 1003 Road removal, the Bull Run Creek RM 0.5 restoration design, expand into the Hidaway Creek RM 1.8 Phase 3 design effort, and work with collaborators to develop a Mine Tailing Restoration effort on Boulder Creek near Granite, Oregon.

CTUIR will continue to coordinate with the Umatilla National Forest and Trout Unlimited to identify projects in the Desolation Creek Basin so when forest capacity increases a list of viable projects are ready. CTUIR will also continue to coordinate with the Umatilla County SWCD and North Fork John Day Watershed Council to develop projects in the Owens Creek Basin near Ukiah, Oregon.