The rehabilitation of Camp Creek

Grasslands are some of the least protected open spaces, Preserve Manager Jeff Fields said.

As the ponds were removed, fences were constructed around the sites to keep stock and wildlife out of the rehabbed areas. Troughs were installed outside of the exclosures. These troughs siphon water from the creek to supply drinking water to cattle, deer and elk.

Cattle still graze on the grasslands the conservancy purchased in 2000. Grazing is just one of many tools the conservancy uses to manage the prairie.

The ponds were built in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, Fields said, to supply grazing cattle with adequate water. Unfortunately, sediment wasn’t being properly redistributed along the creek leaving excess gravel in some places and not enough in others, causing erosion along the stream’s bank.   

“The dams act as sediment traps,” Fields said, “while downstream is starved of sediment. This throws off the balance.”

Camp Creek swells in the spring and summer months with snow melt, but is also supplied with springs along the way, Fields said. There’s a 1:1 ratio, depth to width, in the natural channels of Camp Creek. In these areas the creek is shaded and cool and the water table is relatively high in the prairie.

Yet when there is too much water the banks are swiftly eroded.

“The power of water creates head cutting,” Fields said. “In addition, proper hydrologic function is critical for steelhead and resident fish habitat.”

And healthy fish habitat life is one of many indicators of a healthy ecosystem. With many of the dams removed, resident and anadramous fish will have more access to some of the upper reaches of Camp Creek.

Another factor in removing some of the dams, Fields said, was that many were at risk of failure, which could have caused large redistribution of sediment and affected aquatic life.

“It will be interesting to see what aquatic habitat and insect diversity there will be as the system recovers,” Fields said.

The nine ponds that were not replaced are relatively intact and not at risk of failure, Fields said.

During the rehabilitation of Camp Creek, sedge grasses and rushes were salvaged and replanted to help the stream heal itself.

“Those sedges and rushes have 6 to 10 inches of new growth on them,” Fields said.

Removing the dams was a coordinated effort with the conservancy, the Army Corps of Engineers, Oregon’s Division of State Lands and the Department of Environmental Quality. Local contractor Lou Perry provided the heavy lifting for the job, and Cory Miller Fencing built the exclosures around the rehabbed sites. Fields said poles for the fences were purchased from Community Smallwoods of Wallowa.

Fields stops during a tour of the prairie to smell the earth upturned by badgers. Badgers are well fed, Fields said, on ground squirrels during the summer months when the prairie is alight with the small critters.

“The prairie has fairly deep soils stitched together by vegetation,” Fields said.

These deep soils support native bunchgrass and great basin wild rye as well as shrubs such as Hawthorne, rose, and snowberry, all common on grasslands, Fields said. The sharp tail grouse that lives on the prairie year round, rely on shrub berries over the winter.

“Shrublands and riparian areas are ligaments that hold the land together,” Fields said.

Because of the fertility of grasslands like the Zumwalt, most have had native grasses replaced with non-native varieties for grazing.

Fields and his staff have been experimenting with native grass restoration. They’ve used grazing, burning and herbicides on a small test plot of 32 acres. It will be reseeded next week with a reseeder borrowed from the OSU Experiment Station in Pendleton.

Fields said they are doing “strict experimental design work to gain insight into what works to create better habitat diversity.”

Reeseeded test plots will determine how well native grasses will replace non-native varieties and noxious weeds. Studying habitat diversity will be a work in progress for many years to come.

To learn more about The Nature Conservancy’s Zumwalt Prairie Preserve go to http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/oregon/preserves/art6813.html.