Repairing riparian habitat in Crook County

The Ochoco Preserve property isn’t hard to spot as you drive down Madras Highway, but people who don’t know about the project might wonder what they’re seeing.

Heavy machinery is moving large amounts of dirt around, forming channels through which water bodies flow with no apparent pattern or plan. But all of the changes have a purpose and have been carefully calculated with the goal of improving riparian health on the property.

The Ochoco Preserve property is located on 185 acres of former farmland, southwest and adjacent to the Crooked River Wetlands Complex.

“We bought the property in 2018 and bought a secondary piece in 2020. The reason this property was a priority for us because it’s the confluence of McKay Creek, Ochoco Creek and the Crooked River,” explained Rika Ayotte, Deschutes Land Trust’s executive director. “Those types of confluences are really critical in terms of habitat for fish and for wildlife.”

Work began on the three-phase project in 2020. The first phase, most of which was completed in 2022, focused on McKay Creek and associated floodplains and wetlands. Hills and channels were constructed, and the creek was engineered so it meandered through the landscape and wasn’t such a straight shot.

The second phase, which started in May and is set to conclude in October, is focusing on Ochoco Creek and the Crooked River. Work on the creek includes a new baseload channel and associated floodplain, side channels and wetlands. Deschutes Land Trust is moving the Crooked River channel out of its current alignment and putting more bends in it.

“What we call all this work is floodplain restoration,” Ayotte said. “Before this area was developed, you would have these waterways that would regularly flood their banks, that would have channels that would fill up, depending on the water levels, and go dry different times of the year.”

She went on to say that for a number of reasons, the ability for a lot of the creeks and streams to move across the floodplain and across a broader space was taken away. And while the developments were beneficial for irrigation and flood prevention, they weren’t as helpful for habitat.

“The real interest in this property, in restoring the creeks and streams here, is tied to the reintroduction of salmon and steelhead in the Upper Deschutes Basin,” Ayotte said. “Many organizations have a vested interest in the success of that reintroduction program.”

Those organizations include such partners as the city of Prineville and Crook County as well as the Crooked River Watershed Council, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Forest Service, Portland General Electric and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.

The city and county both partnered with Deschutes Land Trust in reviewing and assessing the design.

“We worked with the city to figure out how to maximize the benefit of the combination of the Wetlands Complex and the Ochoco Preserve property,” Ayotte said.

Once work on the second phase is complete, Deschutes Land Trust plans to plant tens of thousands of native plants and grasses to repopulate the area with the vegetation and restore its natural appearance. Then, in the spring of 2025, if funding is sufficient, the organization will begin work on phase 3, which will focus on the remainder of the Crooked River as well as proposed trails and footbridges that connect the Ochoco Preserve to the nearby Wetlands Complex.