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The North
Fork Nehalem River and its watershed once produced some of
the most prolific coho salmon runs on the coast of Oregon.
The cool protected waters of the river's many small tributaries
provided ideal rearing habitat for the young fish before they
headed to the Pacific.
As the region was settled in the late 19th century, however,
unrestrained commercial fishing, wholesale logging and agricultural
practices led to declines in salmon numbers that lasted far into
the 20th. As recently as the early 1990s, coho returns to the
North Fork Nehalem in some years were discouragingly small.
But now the coho runs are surging back, and chinook and steelhead
populations also are improving. Part of the reason is Paul McCracken,
a forestland owner along the North Fork, who has made it his
life's work to restore the watershed's world-class fish habitat.
He is using forestry to accomplish this goal.
McCracken, a native Oregonian, is an avid angler and the chairman
emeritus of a Portland-based international lumber company. Over
the last 20 years he has acquired more than 1,400 acres of forestland
in the watershed of the North Fork, which lies in Clatsop and
Tillamook counties in the northwestern corner of Oregon and drains
into the Pacific Ocean about 12 miles away.
His twin goals are to help make this river and its tributaries
ever more hospitable for anadramous fish, while earning a strong
return on his forestland investment. He is achieving both these
goals, and demonstrating that making healthy salmon habitat can
be a cornerstone of profitable forest management.
Just as the logging practices of an earlier time played a role
in the decline of salmon and steelhead populations in the North
Fork Nehalem, the improved forestry of today, practiced by dedicated
landowners like Paul McCracken, has proven the key to these species'
continuing recovery.
Big Woods, Plentiful Salmon
The McCracken forestlands comprise six parcels along the North
Fork Nehalem River and four of its tributaries. The watershed
of the North Fork lies adjacent to the much larger area drained
by the Nehalem River main fork. Both rivers drain into Nehalem
Bay on the Oregon coast.
Three of the six parcels lie in Clatsop County, and three in
Tillamook County. The North Fork Canyon tract, the largest, is
about 750 acres; the six parcels total roughly 1,400 acres. The
terrain ranges from moderate to steep.
The properties lie in a rich tree-growing region well-loved by
Oregonians. In 1933 the notorious Tillamook Burn consumed 240,000
acres of forestland here, much of it old-growth, only to be followed
by large fires in the same area in 1939 and 1944. The three fires
burned 355,000 acres of forestland, and destroyed more than 13
billion-board feet of standing timber.
To protect the burned-over lands and hasten their restoration,
Oregon created Tillamook State Forest, which today covers 364,000
acres near McCracken's property.
When he acquired his second-growth forestlands they little resembled
the North Fork's original forests, in which the dominant Douglas
fir and Sitka spruce boasted an average trunk diameter of six
feet or more, with many trees reaching 10 feet through the trunk.
Also abundant a century ago were the salmon. Coho and chinook,
along with steelhead, returned to the North Fork watershed each
year by the thousands. Conditions favored their survival and
reproduction. The deep shade of big conifers along the stream
banks kept the water cold, large woody debris in the watercourses
sheltered young fish, and streambeds of gravel protected the
eggs laid by spawning salmon. Most numerous were the coho, because
the North Fork's habitat suited this species in particular; the
watershed's many small, low-gradient streams provided the sheltered
waters young coho need during the full year they wait before
migrating to the ocean.
Prior to white settlement, in most years the Nehalem Indians
obtained ample supplies of fish by harvesting only a small portion
of the salmon returning to local rivers. The first Europeans
and Americans came to the Oregon coast by sea before 1780, and
first settled inland in the 1840s. The first settler moved into
the Nehalem Valley in 1866, according to a timeline prepared
by Joseph Maser and Jill Johnson of Portland State University.
By 1900 logging, commercial fishing and farming on cleared lands
thrived along the coast of northwest Oregon, including Nehalem
Bay. Fish packers in the bay intercepted salmon bound for fresh
water and harvested them without restriction, a practice they
continued for two decades.
Intensive logging of the North Fork's forests lasted from about
1900 into the late 1920s. Although railroad logging came in prior
to World War I, many logs were floated to the mills down the
streams, with the North Fork delivering logs directly to mills
on Nehalem Bay. At first, logs were floated only on high water
during winter storms. Later, however, timber operators put in
splash dams, which could be used during much of the year - at
the cost of great damage to the stream banks and channels.
"The river was dammed so that water and logs were backed up behind
it. Then the dam was breached, allowing the water and logs to
wash downstream to the sawmill," wrote Maser and Johnson. "The
elevated water flowing downstream overflowed the banks of the
river in many places."
According to one estimate they cite, 100 million-board feet of
timber were floated out of the North Fork drainage, mostly with
the assistance of splash dams. The torrents of logs scoured out
the stream channels and straightened their courses.
With the last of the old-growth harvested by the end of the 1940s,
the banks of the waterways denuded, and with fewer bends and
less coarse woody debris in the channels, water raged down the
North Fork and its tributaries during flood season, filling the
gravel beds so important to spawning salmon with sediments too
fine-grained to accommodate their eggs.
Despite the damaged watershed, sport fishing was still good at
times through the 1940s in both the North Fork and the larger
nearby Nehalem River. One angler bragged that he and a partner
took 23 steelhead in four hours eight miles up the Nehalem River
in 1938.
But the price of previous abuses ultimately had to be paid, and
the fishery on the North Fork entered a steep decline. Ultimately,
the once-bountiful salmon runs that were so important economically
and culturally dwindled in numbers and vigor.
Using Forestry to Restore Fish Habitat
Today, a half-century later, the North Fork Nehalem River is "a
shining star in salmon recovery," according to local members
of the Association of Northwest Steelheaders. "With voluntary
improvements in forest practices by [landowners], upstream habitat
on the North Fork has produced results."
Significant yearly increases in the numbers of young coho, chinook
and steelhead are documented by a device on the river that counts
fry and smolts. The "screw trap" fish counter is operated by
research personnel from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Paul McCracken's forestry satisfies the three most important
needs of the native anadramous fish: shade, structure, and sediment
reduction. He and his longtime property caretaker, Bruce Cooper,
recognize that the surest way to provide these conditions is
to encourage conifers to grow along stream banks, particularly
long-lived, large-diameter tree species like Sitka spruce, western
hemlock, western red cedar and Douglas fir.
Salmonids are coldwater fish, and the generous foliage of tall
conifers hides streams from the sun and keeps water temperatures
down. These large trees also create woody debris when logs, branches
and root wads fall into and across the channels. This "structure" serves
several important functions. It offers young fish important protection
from predators, and provides a diversity of habitat for other
organisms, making good feeding grounds for salmonids. Fallen
trees can divert water and create wetlands used by salmon for
overwintering.
Structure also slows stream currents, which fosters pools and
eddies where fish can rest, and where they can find refuge from
flood events. Further, when currents are slowed by structure,
gravel particles drop out of the water and create beds good for
spawning. Conifers hold the stream banks together with their
root systems, slowing erosion and thereby reducing sedimentation
of these spawning beds.
After the conifer harvests of earlier years, thick stands of
red alder (along with fewer numbers of Sitka spruce) had colonized
many of the stream banks on the McCracken property. Alders are
not big enough to shade the streams they way conifers do, and
they are shorter-lived -- many of them were already old and rotting.
When they fall into the streams, the woody debris they create
is less substantial and doesn't last very long.
McCracken and Cooper were concerned that as the alder died off,
salmonberry would flourish and inhibit the regeneration of trees.
So they launched a project to convert hardwood-dominated riparian
areas to conifers through selective harvesting and replanting.
They also cabled many large logs into the North Fork and other
streams to slow flows, stabilize banks and provide cover. On
Boyakin Creek, gabions (wire cages filled with stones and cement)
were installed along eroding banks of the river.
The two men dug alcoves along the North Fork and God's Valley
Creek -- streams with historically good steelhead runs -- to
create eddies and calm the water. They created an overwintering
pond near the junction of two waterways in a marshy section where
they had found steelhead fingerlings, then placed woody debris
in the pond to provide shelter for the young fish. In surveys,
staff from the state Fish and Wildlife Department found steelhead
trout overwintering in both the alcoves and the pond.
"The pond worked well for the fish, and it also attracted beavers.
They put a second pond in behind the first one," Cooper explained.
In their restoration efforts McCracken and Cooper have worked
closely with public agencies, including the state Forestry and
Fish and Wildlife departments, and the Oregon State University
Extension Service. In 1992 McCracken received the "Landowner
of the Year" award from Fish and Wildlife for his work on fish
habitat restoration.
The alder conversion project in the riparian areas of his lands
is an example of a project that has benefited from the guidance
of a state forester. Collaboration has led to mutual respect
between the landowner and the regulators, and the latter have
shown flexibility in approving McCracken's harvest activities.
With advice from Katy Kavanaugh, an OSU Extension forester, McCracken
and Cooper cleared alder from areas that would favor conifer
regeneration, rather then harvesting the hardwoods in a pre-set
pattern. Because riparian areas are subject to frequent disturbance,
foresight and planning were crucial to the project's success.
Floodplains, erosive slopes and unstable banks were avoided.
All existing conifers were retained on site.
They cleared out patches of alder, all less than an acre in size
and all irregularly shaped. Alder harvests in 1996 and 1997 resulted
in a mosaic of amoeba-shaped cuts, weaving through the hardwood-dominated
stands on the floodplains. Markets in alder pulp and saw logs
that did not exist two decades ago helped bring a return as work
continued to convert more of the property back to conifers.
During the winters following the harvests of alder, Cooper planted
the largest conifer seedlings possible in the harvested areas.
He chose western red cedar, western hemlock and Sitka spruce,
all species better-suited to shade and moist soils than Douglas
fir. These conifers will last much longer and grow far larger
than alder, and so will provide better cover for fish whether
standing or fallen.
The hemlock and spruce were transplanted from other portions
of the property and, with permission, from a nearby state park.
Large western red cedar plugs were obtained from Willamette Industries
and interplanted with the hemlock and spruce. To limit deer and
elk browse, Cooper protected the cedar with Vexar tubing and,
in some cases, with chicken-wire fences. Rather than follow a
strict spacing, he planted on slight rises or knolls, or in protective
micro-sites, where there was a better chance for the seedlings
to outcompete salmonberry and withstand periodic flooding.
Healthy Stream Corridors
Both McCracken and Cooper see their restoration efforts more
as an investment for the future of the stream and its fish than
as a financial venture. They expect that few if any of the conifers
they have planted in these areas will ever be harvested.
They have a different kind of return in mind, Cooper says: "I
would love to come back to God's Valley Creek one hundred years
from now and see it. That's what I'm getting out of it -- a vision
of it decades down the road."
The work continues to restore salmon and steelhead habitat on
the McCracken woodlands, and Paul McCracken views it as a lifelong
endeavor.
"Continually testing the compatibility of managing for maximum
wildlife enhancement while conducting a successful and sustainable
forestry business,"
he says. "That remains our goal and major challenge."
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