Lewis and Clark enjoyed a lunch break overlooking the Tucannon River in May of 1806. Their journals describe willows and cottonwoods growing along a pebbled creek with low banks. Despite early settlers’ efforts to shape and control the flow of the river, it looks much as it did 200 years ago.

The Tucannon River originates close to the Oregon and Idaho borders, in the lower eastern corner of Washington. It is a key tributary of the Snake River, and home to no less than four endangered salmon species: bull trout, steelhead, and spring and fall chinook. Of the problems that often affect salmon-bearing streams – lack of habitat and insufficient amounts of muddy, warm water – only high temperatures are a consistent problem here. The relatively good condition of the river is due – at least in part – to the fact that its entire course is sparsely populated, and that many who do live here have worked hard to be good neighbors to the fish.

Don Howard is one of the few folks who has the Tucannon in his backyard, and his efforts are one reason why this river is in such good shape. About four miles of the Tucannon run through Don’s 4000-acre cattle and alfalfa operation. Don’s great-grandfather settled here just 80 years after the Corps of Discovery passed through. Like Lewis and Clark, Don doesn’t call the Tucannon a river. “It was always a creek to me,” he says. “Most people come in here and call it a river, but I call it a creek.”

Don’s priorities are no different than those of his ancestors. “I want to save the stream bank; that is my number one issue,” he asserts. “It is human nature to save your property from channel migration – my granddad did it, my dad did it.” But Don has had to contend with a much more complex regulatory environment in addressing this priority. Since 1992, when the salmon runs in his backyard were listed as endangered, Don has worked collaboratively with local, state, tribal, and federal agencies to meet his objectives as a landowner, while also providing habitat and shelter for native fish.

Don is optimistic about human ability to come up with solutions to stabilize stream banks while providing for fish and wildlife. His stretch of the Tucannon runs pretty straight and fast. “Around 1993 they said we need more pools,” he explains. “I said, ‘Well, let’s build them!’ They laughed at me the first time I said that.” But Don gave it a try, and found that configuring rock and woody debris in the stream to scour out pools creates habitat and slows the water, protecting the integrity of the stream banks. Don is quick to point out the experimental nature of these efforts: “Some are good and some are not very good, and the next year it changes. You never know what you are going to end up with.”

Don has also experimented with planting trees in problem stream banks. The old method of shoring up a failing stream bank relied on rip-rap, which is usually a stacked wall of large rocks or uniform cement blocks. But it is difficult for plants to take root through rocks and cement, so stream shading and habitat complexity are diminished. Don describes an alternative approach: “I had a raw bank and it was cutting in really bad. I talked to the Department of Fish and Wildlife and said I’d like to do something here, so they came in and helped; it was a cooperative deal. We smoothed the bank up, put down palm matting and planted trees. Looking at it today, it’s almost a little jungle there. Now we have trees to collect sediment. Maybe sediment will come in and kill the whole thing – then we’ll go in and plant again.” Don admits that they have had failures, but insists that if you don’t try something, you will never gain anything.

Some of Don’s management activities were not intended to protect salmon habitat, but they have had that effect all the same. “When my dad was still alive, my brother and I built a sediment basin to catch what came out of a canyon up here,” he explains. “Lots of times the stream would be clear until it got to that canyon – it’s right where snow drifts pretty heavy in the winter – then we’d get a thawing rain onto frozen ground. I was thinking we needed to catch some of that silt. I wasn’t thinking about the creek at the time, but it made a big difference – we caught a lot of sediment there.” Don, along with the vast majority of landowners in Columbia County, has also switched to no-till farming, reducing stream sedimentation. Instead of plowing fields in the fall and leaving them vulnerable to erosion all winter, new seeds are punched into the matted remains of last year’s crop every spring. The roots and stubble left over the winter hold the soil in place.

Improving endangered salmon habitat requires many more consultations and partnerships than most independent farmers can happily tolerate. Don has partnered with the Nez Perce Tribe to fence his cows out of the river. He has had fly-fishing clubs from the Tri-Cities come help him build rock structures to put in the stream. He uses only half of the water that he was originally entitled to, and the rest is held in trust by the state.

Don also allows some of his land to be managed as a riparian buffer as part of the federal Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. He is currently working with the state Department of Ecology to change his irrigation system to increase its efficiency. In many of these efforts, government funding covers the bulk of the work, but Don typically has to pony up a sizable cost-share, and fit the numerous meetings and extra work in and around his usual farming tasks.

With all of the agency people and researchers that he has partnered with, Don is not afraid to speak his mind. “I don’t agree with everything,” he says. “You have research that comes in and there are some things that aren’t necessarily so. It’s hard to contradict a researcher, but sometimes you have to. When it’s not so, it’s not so. I feel I have lived here long enough, I should know a little bit about the stream itself. You have individuals who have had schooling on these resources, and that all helps. When you put us together, you’ve got a collaborative program.”