Evans Creek
The Freshwater Trust
Evans Creek is a small tributary stream that drains into Oregon's famous Rogue River near the town of Grants Pass, Oregon. Like many small streams in the arid West, Evan's Creek has been degraded by a past century of grazing, logging, and water extraction. Worse yet, water rights in Evans Creek exceed the total amount of water running through the creek in dry summers. As a result water withdrawals can leave Evans Creek severely dewatered, with insufficient habitat to support threatened coho salmon and native steelhead trout.
Throughout much of the Evan's Creek watershed, forests were cleared in order to establish marginal farmland. Over time, the porous soils in Evan's Creek underachieved at hay production while requirements for irrigation water caused Evans Creek to dry up during the summer.
In an effort to improve stream flows in Evan's Creek, The Freshwater Trust used BEF funding and forged a partnership with local landowners to improve stream flows in the Creek. The Freshwater Trust reached an agreement with landowners through which stream water would be diverted to irrigate fields during early summer periods when Evan's Creek had ample water for both fish and human needs. Then, in mid to late summer, when Evan's Creek's flows dropped and there typically isn't enough water to provide quality rearing habitat for juvenile fish and to sustain other aquatic life, landowners agreed to leave natural stream flow in the Creek to benefit salmon, trout, and wildlife.
The Freshwater Trust estimates that the Evan's Creek project has facilitated a 50% improvement in late summer stream flow. Beavers are now actively pooling up the small stream, streamside vegetation is growing vigorously, and water is flowing once again to expand summer rearing habitat for steelhead trout and coho salmon. Additional restoration efforts and more streamflow restoration initiatives will be needed to hasten ecological recovery of the stream. Still this project represents an important step, that BEF and The Freshwater Trust hope to build upon with additional projects to further improve conditions for salmon and trout in Evan's Creek and the Rogue River basin.
