Streams Near Petersburg To Get Restoration Attention

Here’s more on the project from KTOO:

Two excavators were digging out part of the east fork of Ohmer Creek, a salmon stream that runs under Mitkof Highway about 21 miles south of Petersburg. They were moving huge logs, many with rootwads still attached, and placing them in the streambed.

Six decades ago, the trees along this stream were logged and many stumps removed.

“When you lose the wood out of the stream, you lose the fish habitat out of the stream,” said Heath Whitacre, a hydrologist with the U.S. Forest Service. “And the hard part to overcome is, you have a long time to wait until the trees that were logged in the flood plain come back to a size that will create more habitat in the future.”

This project aims to rebuild some of that fish habitat on an area of about 20 acres around east Ohmer Creek, along with the north and south fork of a tributary to that called Lumpy Creek.