As the Clark County Legacy Lands program reaches 40 years in action, the East Fork Lewis River Reconnection Project is finishing up its first year of reshaping the river on legacy land.
The Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership’s historic $23.5-million habitat restoration project covers 3 river miles downstream from Daybreak Park with the main focus surrounding the Ridgefield Pits — an abandoned pit mining area between La Center and Daybreak Park.
The project exists on acreage a part of the Clark County Legacy Lands vision to ultimately build a trail along the lower East Fork Lewis River from Paradise Point State Park to Lewisville Park.
“We’re almost there, and in 2030, we’ll be doing our master plan for that trail system,” said Denielle Cowley, lands coordinator with Clark County Public Works. “But without these continuing investments from these nonprofits like the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership, we the county don’t have the funds to do these types of improvements.”
The East Fork restoration project starts at Daybreak Park where the trail will be moved away from the eroding banks as the project will assist in stabilizing the bank. A map from the mid-1800s showed the area of the Ridgefield Pits as once a multi-channel floodplain. By the 1960s, the river was jammed into one channel to allow for the gravel mining operations to commence.
A 1996 flood event caused the river to have an irregular flow among the pits, which affected the local ecosystem. The river overran levees and flooded the abandoned gravel pits. The water has remained trapped, creating warm water conditions unsuitable for spawning salmonids and lamprey to survive. During the higher water levels, which is right around the corner, access is opened for fish species to the river portions blocked off during the late spring and summer months.
But now, the pits are filled and the contracted construction crew, Tapani Inc., is actively forming channels, seeding native grasses and building natural wood structures to mimic shelter for fish.
“We picked the East Fork Lewis River because it’s really important for salmon recovery,” said restoration program lead Chris Collins. “Five species of salmonids, most of them listed, so it’s unique in that it supports a lot of different species of salmonids.”
Collins added that the river is a wild fish stronghold.
“So there’s a lot of potential to recover wild gene banks,” he said. “So it’s really important. It’s a really important river system.”
Not only will all the work help salmonids, but it will also make major, positive impacts for lamprey, freshwater mussels, native plant species and more. Mussel populations could reach tens of thousands more after having recovered nearly 60,000 from the mining pits and blocked off channels between pits.
Upstream from Daybreak Park is essentially a narrow river valley with multiple waterfalls and tributaries. With the way the river rushes from headwaters to the project site, sediment starts to add up as the river valley widens near the mouth.
Project coordinators hope to see chum salmon numbers increase, as well as Chinook salmon, as those species don’t spawn as far upstream as Steelhead do.
“We’ve been trying to get back to what is as close to the 1850s version as we possibly can,” said Jasmine Zimmer-Stucky, public and legislative affairs manager for the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership.
To get as close to that as possible, hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of earth is being moved around the site to fill the pits and create the channels. Around 5,100 trees and logs are being used to create the wood structures that will serve as the habitat shelter in the water, as well as above water for birds and other animals that will benefit from the efforts.
The first year of construction on the habitat is soon to be completed. The next year will mainly focus on the north shore of the river in order for the temporary bridge spanning the river to come down.
A dam redirecting the river’s flow will be removed so the river flows through its main channel.
