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Flathead River Restoration What happens when a bunch of fishermen, birdwatchers, conservation advocates, duck hunters, landowners and government agencies get together with a can-do attitude? For the Flathead River, it adds up to cleaner water and better habitat for fish and wildlife.
Four new restoration projects along the Flathead River and two associated wetland sloughs have been completed over the past two years by diverse partners in the Critical Lands Project.
The Critical Lands Project is a collaborative effort led by the Flathead Lakers to identify, protect and restore lands critical to maintaining or improving water quality in Flathead Lake and its tributaries. The Lakers' partners in the project include the American Bird Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, Ducks Unlimited, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP), the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), and four landowners.
Two years ago, project partners identified several river banks and wetlands that could benefit from restoration. Placing native plants along rivers, lakes and wetlands:
• slows down runoff, allowing water and nutrients to be taken up by plants;
• reduces flooding and mitigates its effects;
• provides shade and habitat for fish, including native bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout; and
• provides habitat for birds to nest, feed and travel.
Project partners first approached landowners who had expressed interest in conservation. In 2007, Tom, Charles, and Dan Siderius placed a conservation easement on 670 acres of their properties along the Flathead River. The conservation easement allows the landowners to continue farming their land while protecting important riparian areas, sloughs, forests and prime agricultural soils.
To complement the Siderius’ conservation effort, the Flathead Lakers joined efforts with FWP and NRCS to help fund restoration projects along the river banks. The funding helped pay for fencing to keep cattle out of the riparian areas, developing a cattle watering facility, and reestablishing riparian vegetation along the river and associated wetland sloughs.
John and Amy Waller also worked with partners to restore the banks along Egan Slough, an old channel of the Flathead River. The funding secured by partners helped pay for revegetation of native plants, heavy weed mats to exclude the invasive canary reed grass, and temporary fences that will protect the young native plants from deer.
The restoration projects helped establish over 4,000 linear feet of riparian buffers. More than 3,000 trees and shrubs were planted.
Watershed Consulting was hired to design and implement the projects. A team of Trout Unlimited volunteers helped plant and fence the restoration projects.
The projects were made possible by funding from an NRCS EQIP All-Bird Conservation Initiative grant, FWP funding for native fish and wildlife habitat enhancement, an Intermountain West Joint Venture grant managed by Ducks Unlimited and granted to the Flathead Lakers, and the landowners’ time and labor. Special thanks are due to John Wachsmuth, FWP, for project coordination, to NRCS for project funding, and to Dan Casey, American Bird Conservancy, who will be conducting bird surveys to assess whether the restoration projects provide benefits to native birds.
To read about another restoration project on the Flathead River please visit the Flathead Lakers' website at: http://www.flatheadlakers.org/publications_maps/newsletter/2009_winter.pdf (pages 6-7).