2024 East Fork Elk Creek Fish Passage Project

This past July, the Mid Klamath Watershed Council, in partnership with the Karuk Tribe and the Klamath National Forest, completed the East Fork Elk Creek Fish Passage Project with the goal of improving existing habitat and facilitating permanent volitional access for Coho salmon to an additional 4 miles of prime spawning and rearing habitat on East Fork Elk Creek, a tributary to Elk Creek in Happy Camp, CA.

A spider excavator outfitted with a hydraulic rock hammer was used to access the steep and rocky project site and create a series of 3 jump pools by chipping depressions into an exposed bedrock strath within the riparian corridor. This location, with its bedrock cascade, had always been a barrier to upstream salmonid migration and now, with the newly excavated fishway, Coho will be able to spawn and rear in approximately 4 additional miles of high-quality, low-gradient stream habitat that had previously been inaccessible to them.

Additionally, 19 key log pieces were placed in the ¼ mile of East Fork Elk Creek between the historic barrier site and the confluence with Elk Creek to create 4 large woody debris (LWD) structures. These structures will help increase aquatic habitat complexity, slow flows, enhance pools, raise surface water elevations, and facilitate the creation and expansion of gravel patches ideal for spawning.

Monitoring efforts have shown consistent use of East Fork Elk Creek by spawning and rearing Coho salmon, but in small numbers and restricted to the first ¼ mile of stream. We’re excited to catch a glimpse this coming winter of adult Coho salmon jumping out of the pool at the base of the cascade and making it into the new fishway and up into reaches of East Fork Elk Creek they have never explored before.

This project was sponsored by the Karuk Tribe, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and PacifiCorp.