Field Day on the Coast

In a rare showing of spectacular winter weather, I had a Regional Review Team meeting of restoration projects on the coast which worked out perfectly.  Despite a few hail storms, most of the day was sunny and pleasant.  You could almost feel the warmth coming off the sun at a couple points!

Horn Creek flowing through a low-gradient pasture on private property.  Plenty of sinuosity, great substrate size and floodplain connectivity, but lacking instream habitat structure (above and below).

Horn Creek with the former main channel (left) having been replaced with a new channel (center) because of some downed woody debris.

The day started out in Pacific City and we toured a project proposal up Horn Creek looking at restoring instream structure.  From there we drove to an unnamed tributary to Juno Creek where we looked at a wetland restoration project which sought to remove a couple failed culverts on a road.  And finally, we went to Bay City and Patterson Creek where we looked at a proposal to remove and upgrade a handful of culverts within the municipality itself.

And when I got home at the end of the day, I made miso-butter salmon and pecan pie!