USGS Multimedia Gallery: (Video)--Recreating confluence environments and habitat for Pacific Northwest streams, Tryon Confluence, Portland, Oregon

Recreating confluence environments and habitat for Pacific Northwest streams, Tryon Confluence, Portland, Oregon

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[Music playing]

Faith: We're down on the banks of the

Willamette River. Over the last couple

of days we've had quite a bit of rain

and flooding that went on in the

Portland area, so the stage of the

river is quite high and it backs up

into the mouth of the Tryon Creek here.

They have a lot of wood that has been

placed here as part of the

rehabilitation project. What's the

importance of all the wood that we've

been seeing in the area?

Jennifer: The Pacific Northwest is

characterized by ancient forests with

giant logs, and when these things would

blow down into a stream, they could

take hundreds of years of being in that

stream for macroinvertebrates to attach

onto and just fish to hide underneath.

And as those logs move through the

system they also got hung up on

riverbanks like this one here. So, as

we've been logging out our beautiful

old growth forests we've just really

lost that habitat element. And so what

we do is we just try to restore those

pieces and give the fish a place to

hide out. We really like to use the

root wods that you see here because

they're all messy and a fish could dart

in there and hideout. A bigger fish

might not be able to get in there after them.

Faith: With the Tryon Creek, too, it's

a side channel of the Willamette and so

it also had some fish passage issues.

What were some of the problems with that?

Matt: One of the problems with fish

passage was that at lower flows the

culvert under the highway just about

1,000 feet up would become perched and

water would spill down making it

difficult for fish to get into. And so

one of the things we did in the early

phase of the project was to raise the

channel bed up about two feet so that

the fish could at least access that

culvert during those conditions.

Faith: The mouth area – really

important for a lot of fish species

that are characteristic of the large

rivers here too. What are some of those species?

Tim: Yeah, so a number of the

tributaries, the Tryon included, come

in, and you mentioned that the heavy

rains have created some backwater, and

actually the tidal cycle from the ocean

can be influenced all the way up –

Faith: All the way up to here, huh?

Tim: – to here as well. And so there

are a number of listed species that

pass this area in the Willamette. There

are Coho Salmon, there're Steelhead,

there're Snook, there're Pacific

Lamprey, which are not listed under the

Endangered Species Act, but we know

adults pass here as well as juvenile

and larval forms rear here, Western

Brook Lamprey also rear in the main

stem. All of those species use the

mouths of the tributaries, including

potentially this area of Tyron, for

some rearing opportunity.

[Music playing]

[End of Audio]

Details

Title: Recreating confluence environments and habitat for Pacific Northwest streams, Tryon Confluence, Portland, Oregon

Description:

Faith Fitzpatrick (U.S. Geological Survey), Kristen Acock (Portland Bureau of Environmental Services), Jennifer Devlin (Portland Bureau of Environmental Services), Tim Whitesel (US Fish and Wildlife Service, Columbia River Fisheries Program Office), and Matt Brennan (Herrera Environmental) talk about a new project at the confluence of Tryon Creek with the much larger Willamette River. The mouth area of Tyron Creek has especially important habitat for endangered fish species.

Location: Portland, OR, Tryon Creek Confluence, USA

Date Taken: 12/13/2010

Length: 3:00

Video Producer: Douglas A. Harned , National Water-Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA), USGS, North Carolina Water Science Center, Raleigh, NC

Note: This video has been released into the public domain by the U.S. Geological Survey for use in its entirety. Some videos may contain pieces of copyrighted material. If you wish to use a portion of the video for any purpose, other than for resharing/reposting the video in its entirety, please contact the Video Producer/Videographer listed with this video. Please refer to the USGS Copyright section for how to credit this video.

Additional Video Credits:

Faith Fitzpatrick: Scriptwriter, Narrator, Scientist Consultant

Gerard McMahon: Producer

Douglas Harned: Producer, Video, Editor

Alan Cressler: Video

Luke McMahon: Video

Jennifer Devlin (Portland Bureau of Environmental Services)

Tim Whitesel (US Fish and Wildlife Service, Columbia River Fisheries Program Office)

Matt Brennan (Herrera Environmental)

Kristin Acock (Portland Bureau of Environmental Services)

File Details: