Projects
Upper Oregon Creek Restoration
Project Description
Oregon Creek is a headwater tributary to the Big Hole River on the Continental Divide (Big Hole River< Deep Creek<French Creek<California Creek<Oregon Creek) and is within the state-owned Mount Haggin Wildlife Management Area (WMA). The area has an extensive history of mining-related disturbance, logging, and livestock grazing. Aerial emissions from smelting activities in Anaconda deposited heavy metals (e.g. Copper, Arsenic, Cadmium, Lead, and Zinc) on nearby mountains which killed upland vegetation and, together with intensive logging to fuel the smelters, removed a vast majority of the vegetation community from the upper extents of the WMA. Devoid of vegetation, large areas developed extensive networks of rills and large gullies during heavy rain events, most severely in areas with geologic parent material of highly erodible volcanic welded tuff. These erosive processes persist on 25 acres of uplands in the upper reaches of Oregon Creek (above our 2019 Oregon Creek restoration project), contributing annual plumes of fine sediment into the creek and eventually into the Big Hole River. These acres were purchased by FWP in 2020 and added to the WMA.
Additionally, 100 years of sedimentation along with anthropogenic alterations to the stream channel have left 1,126 feet of stream channel straightened, downcut, lacking in riparian vegetation, and the surrounding floodplain perched and disconnected from the channel. An FWP fish survey in 2020 showed no fish above these plumes. In comparison to nearby reference conditions throughout the WMA, this reach of Oregon Creek lacks grade controls or the functional qualities of overbank flood events that attenuate sediment.
This project will eliminate most TMDL estimated sediment loading from upland erosion and improve riparian habitat in the headwater reaches of Oregon Creek. This will be accomplished by following the same three-pronged strategy we’ve employed under Superfund in the Mount Haggin Injured Area:
- Establish vegetation on 25 acres of upland slopes to prevent sheet erosion
- Detain sediment in 15 gully networks
- Capture sediment on the floodplain by restoring stream function and dynamics with in-stream and floodplain structures.
This project will also reconnect 11 acres of historic floodplain to the channel by implementing a modified “stage 0” cut and fill restoration approach to approximately 600 feet of straightened and incised section of stream.
Results
Major 2022 Upper Oregon Creek project accomplishments include:
- Installation of 99 in-stream structures (beaver dam analogs (BDAs)/post-assisted log structures (PALS)) to capture sediment in the channel and on the floodplain.
- Installation of 74 gully check dams and 18 gully slash filters in the gully networks to capture eroding upland sediment.
- Approximately 600 ft of straightened and incised channel filled in and re-established to reconnect 11 aces of floodplain (“Stage 0” component).
- 25 bare and eroding acres revegetated (seeded) and fertilized by hand and by helicopter.
- Removal of a failed culvert, reconnecting approximately .5 miles of Oregon Creek headwaters.
- 30 acres of aspen enhancement and 8,300 linear feet of gullies filled with slash and wood.
Additional work/maintenance of all gully check dams, gully slash filters, in-stream structures, and revegetation treatments are scheduled for the fall and summer of 2023.
People and Organizations Involved
Natural Resource Damage Program
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (landowner)
Funders
Montana Department of Environmental Quality
Contractors
Worman Forest Management
Project Documents
Upper Oregon Creek Implementation Plan
Upper Oregon Creek Monitoring Plan
Project Photos



























































Project MAP
Status
In Progress
Type
Streambank/Sedimentation