Alliance puts focus on stream health

Consultants find ways for livestock and creeks to thrive.

Consultants find ways for livestock, creeks to thrive

CANYON CITY - The ongoing dispute over grazing practices and stream quality is made worse by the fact that the parties "don't have a common vocabulary," two riparian ecology consultants said last week.

Wayne Elmore and Mike Lunn, representing The Working Landscapes Alliance, talked to the Grant County Court on May 9 about their efforts to work with communities and to provide realistic ways to assess stream conditions and potential.

The alliance is an interdisciplinary team that seeks to ensure sustainable working ranches while supporting ecological health of the land and honoring the tradition of diverse people and cultures sharing the Western landscape.

It involves the non-profit organization Sustainable Northwest, land management agencies, and individuals from the private sector, including scientists, landowners, and industry people.

Lunn told the court it's important to find ways for diverse groups to communicate better.

"The fact is, creeks are too important to fight over," Lunn said.

It's also a fact, he said, that "you can fix creeks and continue to graze on them, and allow people to make a livelihood."

Elmore said that environmentalists, ranchers, and resource agencies all approach the topic of stream health from diverse viewpoints and values. One wants grazing to continue: another wants to stop it. Still others see fish and other resources as the main values to measure and monitor.

"But in reality, values don't fix creeks," said Elmore. "The functions that go on in the creeks are what will fix creeks."

He said the "physics of a stream" will determine its ability to reach its own potential for water quality, fish and wildlife habitat and other uses.

Elmore said the lawsuits over grazing have become a battle between "dueling scientists" - each with his own point to push on issues such as fish habitat or water temperature.

"But nobody is asking the creek 'What temperature should you be today?'" he noted.

Elmore said looking at the creek's functions and potential "puts the creek's voice in the room."

As private consultants, Elmore and Lunn have been working with the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to assess creek and river conditions.

Elmore showed photographs of an area where managers were able to bolster the health of creekside grasses not by eliminating grazing, but simply by changing the timing of it.

When the Bureau of Land Management and private landowners have conducted a long-term study of Bear Creek, near Prineville, observers found that shifting grazing to early spring or winter had a dramatic impact. Even in the first few years, the creek began catching more sediment, building up its bank areas as valuable flood plain, and growing sedges that have deep root systems to prevent erosion.

After 22 years, the changes in stream depth and vegetation were evident in photographs. Elmore noted that in the sample 3.5-mile stretch, the bank erosion had been largely stopped; the riparian, or wet area, had doubled in size, and the water storage capacity of the creek measured 2.1 million gallons per mile, up from 500,000 gallons per mile.

The key is to grow the sedges and desirable plants that have roots to filter the water and hold the soil in place, he said.

"That's what produces fish habitat, that's what produces livestock forage," he said.

That's a message he's been trying to spread for 30 years.

"People are starting to listen," he said.

Lunn noted that the goals stated by environmental groups like the Oregon Natural Desert Association include more streamside vegetation, cooler water and other improvements.

"We want that, too," he said. The Alliance feels that the way to do it is through stewardship on private and public lands.

That means having a grazing system that works for the specific holding, not a "cookie-cutter solution" applied to all areas, Lunn said. The condition of a stream should be considered in the context of its ecological potential.

Lunn said that in work on the Malheur Forest and John Day River, the consultants have used a measure known as "Proper Functioning Condition" in monitoring streams.

He said PFC is "a foundation" level for streamside recovery, with the goal of continuing improvement.

In a study of a portion of the wild and scenic John Day, he said, "We've been really impressed with the recovery there."

Recovery takes more time in a large river than on smaller streams, he noted.

However, the gains made so far should boost the BLM's confidence about the management changes they have made in the past 20 years, he said.