Category Overview
Conserving land along our waterways protects important habitat and helps keep our rivers healthy, clean, and more resilient to drought. Riparian Protection projects conserve and restore fresh and saltwater habitat while protecting fish habitat. In doing so, the grants help provide our families, farms, and fisheries with clean water across the state.
Project Highlights
This conservation acquisition project permanently conserved 303.69 acres of steeply sloped forest land surrounding both sides of the West Fork Washougal River and its tributary Jackson Creek in SW Skamania County. The River and Creek provide spawning and rearing habitat for federally threatened lower Columbia summer and winter steelhead as well as coho salmon and cutthroat trout. The project’s old forest regenerated naturally following the Yacolt Burn fires of the early 20th century and today it is among the oldest remaining private forest in the Washougal River watershed. The project protects 1.56 miles of instream habitat and 108.83 acres of riparian habitat as defined by a 300′ riparian buffer in a high site-class west Cascades forest type. Conservation provides newly opened public access to the site and enables future habitat enhancement work by Columbia Land Trust and partners. This reach of the River likely plays an outsized role in climate resilience: temperature data indicates that River water leaves the site several degrees cooler than it enters the site on the warmest days of the year due to the function of its mature forested slopes providing ground water inputs year round.