Preliminary plans: Building on Phase I’s detailed geomorphic and habitat assessment, Phase II will transform planning into on-the-ground restoration across the four-mile corridor of lower French Creek and Scott River Reaches 15–14. To restore instream complexity, we will install 22–24 engineered log jams by October 2027, creating roughly 660–720 feet of new pool habitat and enhancing gravel sorting for salmonid spawning. Concurrently, we will reconnect approximately 3,000 feet of historic side channels and construct 17 beaver dam analogues to reestablish off-channel refuge and reduce bank erosion at key hotspots.

Riparian health will be bolstered with the planting of 12,000 native willow, alder, and cottonwood stems and the installation of four miles of protective fencing, ensuring an average canopy cover above 50 percent within three years and a browse-pressure reduction of 90 percent. A new sediment-source mapping and treatment objective will inventory and stabilize the five highest-priority erosion sites, leveraging bio-engineered bank armor and a GIS “sediment-yield” map.

Our rigorous five-year monitoring and adaptive management program will deploy four continuous stage gauges and twelve temperature loggers, conduct annual bathymetric and biannual fish-use surveys, and track riparian survival in forty permanent plots, supplemented by three rounds of drone/LiDAR mapping. Together, these efforts—supported by targeted permitting, engineering design finalization, and stakeholder coordination—are budgeted at $2.5 million, ensuring that Phase II delivers measurable habitat gains, resilience to future droughts, and lasting benefits for both salmonids and local agriculture.