Community Meeting

The Upper Deschutes Watershed Council and the City of Sisters held a public meeting on Tuesday, March 17 to present the Draft Whychus Creek Restoration and Management plan.  Approximately 35 to 40 community members were in attendance.  Key highlights of the plan were presented including proposed actions to be implemented along the four mile project reach. 

The Watershed Council and the City of Sisters answered questions and received comments.  If you would like to submit additional comments or feedback, please click here.

The Consultants are currently working on incorporating comments and finalizing the plan for this coming June, 2009. 

Click here for a PDF version of the meeting presentation (3.4 MB)

Background

Whychus Creek flows for nearly 40 miles from the crest of the Cascades to the Deschutes River in Deschutes County. The creek flows from its headwaters in the Three Sisters Wilderness, through the Deschutes National Forest, City of Sisters, private agricultural land and ultimately enters the Deschutes River upstream of Lake Billy Chinook. In May 2007, more than 200,000 steelhead trout were reintroduced into Whychus Creek as part of a regional effort to restore anadromous fish runs above the Pelton Round Butte Dam. This reintroduction effort has brought anadromous fish to the upper basin for the first time in more than 40 years, and has led to a significant effort to restore habitat, eliminate fish passage barriers and improve water quality in Whychus Creek.

As part of this watershed-scale restoration effort, the Watershed Council and the City of Sisters are working together to enhance and restore Whychus Creek in the developed reaches that flow through the City. Many decades of urban development have encroached upon the floodplain, resulting in some channelization and extensive use of rip-rap along the channel banks. These modifications have altered the hydrology, caued erosion, and impacted riparian conditions and fish habitat in Whychus Creek.

Approach

To begin to address these issues, the Watershed Council in partnership with the City of Sistes has hired the consulting firm Watershed Professionals Network (WPN) to develop a Restoration and Management Plan for the more urbanized reaches of Whychus Creek. The Plan will focus on the one-mile stretch of Whychus Creek that flows through the City of Sisters Urban Growth Boundary (UGB), as well as the portions of the creek that extend about 3/4 of a mile upstream of the UGB boundary and about two miles downstream of the UGB boundary.

The overall goal of the Restoration and Management Plan is to identify opportunities for habitat enhancement and restoration within the urbanized reaches of Whychus Creek. The Plan is intended to guide the restoration of key ecological functions and values of the creek, to better balance the physical and ecological needs of the creek and the aquatic organisms it supports, with the human needs of the growing city. A key component of our work will involve working with a team of technical advisors, as well as hearing the concerns of citizens and creek-side landowners, to make sure that we address key technical issues as well as the social, policy and regulatory issues associated with stream restoration actions.

If you would like more information, please click on the following link to review the detailed Scope of Work for the project:

Detailed Scope of Work (PDF File)

If you have any questions about the project in general, please feel free to contact Mathias Perle, Project Manager.  Click here for contact information.

Project Maps

Click here to download a PDF version of the aerial photo of the project area with Channel Migration Zone and Reach Breaks (8.5 MB)

Click here to download a PDF version of the topographic survey (i.e., LiDAR) of the project area (4.6 MB)