The East Fork Lewis River (EFLR) is an important stream in the lower Columbia River system. It is one of the few undammed rivers with no hatchery programs, and supports five runs of native fish including fall chinook, winter & summer steelhead, coho and chum. It has been a designated wild steelhead genetic sanctuary since 2014. In 2017, the Estuary Partnership worked with local partners to restore two side channels along the river for salmon and steelhead.
Aerial view of the EFLR
While the EFLR supports several salmonid stocks, the river and riparian areas have been impacted by dredging, mining, deforestation
Louisiana Swamp is a wetland site directly along the Columbia River, 4.5 miles west of Clatskanie. The landowner, a private forest products company GreenWood Resources, Inc. worked with the Estuary Partnership, Lower Columbia River Watershed Council, Columbia Soil and Water Conservation District and the US Fish and Wildlife Service to restore 35 acres of habitat at the site, and the project broke ground in August 2013.
Failing tide gate on the site
Before the restoration began, the site was a marshy field of invasive reed canarygrass, and was too wet to farm trees like the rest of the property was used for. Westport
Thousand Acres is part of the 1,500 acre natural area at the confluence of the Sandy and Columbia rivers known as the Sandy River Delta in the Columbia River Gorge. The site, owned by the US Forest Service, was historically a dynamic alluvial floodplain with two distributaries of the Sandy River flowing across it and a mosaic of bottomland forests, wetlands and meadows. The site was severely impacted by deforestation, highway and railroad development, hydrology modifications, and cattle grazing. As a result, the floodplain wetland site became disconnected, had poor water quality, and was
Horsetail Creek, in the Columbia River Gorge, was historically a dynamic part of the Columbia River floodplain, with intact ash forest and scrub-shrub wetland vegetation habitat, and five creeks and sloughs connecting to the river that provided important habitat for salmon, steelhead and lamprey. Today, quality floodplain habitat is scarce for out-migrating salmon, and this important floodplain provides one of the last spots for these fish to rest and feed before traveling through the Portland-Vancouver Metro area where such habitat is severely limited.
La Center Bottoms is a series of wetlands along the East Fork Lewis River just upstream from the city of La Center. Clark County acquired a great deal of high-quality floodplain wetland habitat along the East Fork Lewis River through its Legacy Lands program, including the Bottoms, with the purpose of conserving natural resources as well as providing recreational access to the public. The East Fork Lewis is a high priority river for salmon and steelhead, and the County and the Estuary Partnership share the goal of protecting habitat in this area, so we partnered on a project that ultimately
