 Sandy River is one of the most prominent features of Oregon. It served as a source of drinking water and recreational fishing for generations. Coho salmon and steelhead trout were abundant in the river and its tributaries, but historic floods and river manipulation endangered about a dozen native species. Conservationist group the Freshwater Trust is using cutting-edge laser technology in its effort to restore the damaged ecosystem and after decades of displacement salmon and steelhead are finding their way home. The reason that we're here doing river restoration is because for like 30, 40, 50, 60 years they've been clearing out the large wood out of the stream for various reasons to reduce with the idea of reducing floods, collecting firewood, they've been doing timber harvest in this area. That all stopped back in the 1980s and so since then we've been doing stream restoration in this area. And what happens is when you remove these roughness elements from the system the river responds by getting shorter and straighter and as it gets shorter and straighter you have more energy and as it has more energy it tends to down cut and become further removed from the floodplain. And what we really want is the water out on the floodplain because that gives us the habitat complexity and diversity that juvenile salmon and steelhead need. River restoration requires topographic surveys. Traditionally watersheds have been examined on foot but Freshwater Trust uses LIDAR or light detection and ranging, an infrared laser that provides three-dimensional details of the land. This remote sensing technology creates a detailed map of the watershed which enables them to find restoration sites from a distance. Once we collected LIDAR data via remote sensing from the office you could essentially see all the historic meander patterns and it really accelerated our ability to find the side channels and figure out how they should work as a system in whole. Currently the river is this angry river coming off the mountain going straight down the mountain, very little sinuosity, large cobbles and boulders, not very much spawning gravel, very simple stream and what we're trying to do is make it complex. Today we were actually tipping over whole trees to give us that in-stream large wood component so with a very low risk to infrastructure we can kick water out onto the floodplain and essentially let nature decide where it wants those side channel or off channel habitat to be. It's a little bit like Christmas morning right now you don't know what you're gonna get. So the project objective here was to add whole trees to restore floodplain connectivity on this river left floodplain. Right now you're looking down at a secondary channel, the trees, three trees got pulled over they bridge the secondary channel, landed down in the main channel and carried across the floodplain. When we get high water events next winter the water is going to come down this main channel, get kicked out of the main channel by these three pieces of large wood we just added and add habitat over there on the floodplain. Some people come out here and say oh this is the most beautiful stream I've ever seen but when you're looking at it from a fish's eye it's a very simple habitat and so using limited resources and the challenges that come with that and going out here and creating to me what feels like a magical place for fish is just extremely rewarding. You know I love seeing the habitat and biological response that we get out of these projects. I mean one thing that's really unique about this is that applied restoration it's pretty good at going out there and getting the habitat response that that you want to get whether it's recruiting large wood, whether it's recruiting gravels. What's really neat about salmon and steel creek is that there's enough productivity in the salmon and steelhead that we'll open a side channel and weeks later it'll fill with juvenile fish. We'll create a main stem pool or a log jam on the main stem salmon, recruit gravels that winter and then the following spring we'll have winter steelhead spawning in it. So to immediately see that biological response is tremendously rewarding.
 Sandy River is one of the most prominent features of Oregon. It served as a source of drinking
 water and recreational fishing for generations. Coho salmon and steelhead trout were abundant
 in the river and its tributaries, but historic floods and river manipulation endangered about
 a dozen native species. Conservationist group the Freshwater Trust is using cutting-edge
 laser technology in its effort to restore the damaged ecosystem and after decades of displacement
 salmon and steelhead are finding their way home. The reason that we're here doing river
 restoration is because for like 30, 40, 50, 60 years they've been clearing out the large wood
 out of the stream for various reasons to reduce with the idea of reducing floods, collecting
 firewood, they've been doing timber harvest in this area. That all stopped back in the 1980s and
 so since then we've been doing stream restoration in this area. And what happens is when you remove
 these roughness elements from the system the river responds by getting shorter and straighter and as
 it gets shorter and straighter you have more energy and as it has more energy it tends to
 down cut and become further removed from the floodplain. And what we really want is the water
 out on the floodplain because that gives us the habitat complexity and diversity that juvenile
 salmon and steelhead need. River restoration requires topographic surveys. Traditionally
 watersheds have been examined on foot but Freshwater Trust uses LIDAR or light detection
 and ranging, an infrared laser that provides three-dimensional details of the land. This
 remote sensing technology creates a detailed map of the watershed which enables them to find
 restoration sites from a distance. Once we collected LIDAR data via remote sensing from the
 office you could essentially see all the historic meander patterns and it really accelerated our
 ability to find the side channels and figure out how they should work as a system in whole.
 Currently the river is this angry river coming off the mountain going straight down the mountain,
 very little sinuosity, large cobbles and boulders, not very much spawning gravel,
 very simple stream and what we're trying to do is make it complex.
 Today we were actually tipping over whole trees to give us that in-stream large wood component so
 with a very low risk to infrastructure we can kick water out onto the floodplain and essentially let
 nature decide where it wants those side channel or off channel habitat to be.
 It's a little bit like Christmas morning right now you don't know what you're gonna get.
 So the project objective here was to add whole trees to restore floodplain connectivity
 on this river left floodplain. Right now you're looking down at a secondary channel,
 the trees, three trees got pulled over they bridge the secondary channel, landed down in
 the main channel and carried across the floodplain. When we get high water events next winter the
 water is going to come down this main channel, get kicked out of the main channel by these three
 pieces of large wood we just added and add habitat over there on the floodplain.
 Some people come out here and say oh this is the most beautiful stream I've ever seen but
 when you're looking at it from a fish's eye it's a very simple habitat and so using limited
 resources and the challenges that come with that and going out here and creating to me what feels
 like a magical place for fish is just extremely rewarding. You know I love seeing the habitat and
 biological response that we get out of these projects. I mean one thing that's really unique
 about this is that applied restoration it's pretty good at going out there and getting the habitat
 response that that you want to get whether it's recruiting large wood, whether it's recruiting
 gravels. What's really neat about salmon and steel creek is that there's enough productivity
 in the salmon and steelhead that we'll open a side channel and weeks later it'll fill with
 juvenile fish. We'll create a main stem pool or a log jam on the main stem salmon, recruit gravels
 that winter and then the following spring we'll have winter steelhead spawning in it. So to
 immediately see that biological response is tremendously rewarding.