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The McKenzie Watershed Council (MWC), Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB), McKenzie River Trust (MRT) and USDA Forest Service have reached a major milestone on a habitat restoration project that will benefit wildlife and increase resiliency to floods and wildfires in the McKenzie River watershed.

This summer, the partner organizations completed “in-water work” at the Quartz Creek Ecosystem Restoration Project on the Quartz Creek tributary of the McKenzie River approximately 40 miles east of Eugene.

At 1.8 miles long, the substantial “floodplain reset” is bringing new life to a degraded sub-watershed and substantial contributor of sediments into the mainstem of the McKenzie, setting the stage for healthier streams, thriving wildlife, and a more resilient landscape.

The project team filled the eroded creek bed of Quartz Creek to raise the channel so the water can spread out across the entire floodplain. The team also built logjam structures to capture debris and slow down the water, which lets sediment drop out and forms islands so the creek can create dynamic habitat.

“Disturbance is a really important part of ecosystems,” said Lara Colley, Quartz Creek Restoration Project Manager for the McKenzie Watershed Council. “You need disturbance to get a reset – to have a fresh start. That’s what we’re doing here: a valley reset, so the creek can decide where it needs to go and have room to move.”

The McKenzie is the proving grounds for Stage 0 and Stage 8 restoration.

The Quartz Creek Project is the latest accomplishment by a collaboration of local municipal, nonprofit and federal organizations that have implemented nearly a dozen “Stage 0” and “Stage 8” projects throughout the McKenzie – making the watershed a global inspiration for what is possible in the ground-breaking new theory of freshwater ecology and restoration.

The “Stages” refer to Channel Evolution Models that measure the health or degradation of waterways. In a 2013 scientific paper, two authors proposed a new model in which Stage 0 refers to resetting a degraded river or stream to recreate a multi-channel flow across the entire width of its floodplain. Stage 8 projects restore multi-channel flow on a side-channel of a waterway.

The USDA Forest Service pioneered these projects throughout the Willamette National Forest, with the MWC providing project management support and project implementation, while acting as the contracting agent on projects. MRT also provides project management support and has acted as the contracting agent on several projects. In addition, MRT owns the property for several projects. EWEB provides financial support – thanks to EWEB customers through the Watershed Recovery Fee – as well as contract management and grant acquisition expertise, all while supporting in implementation and monitoring efforts.

“These kinds of projects make our watershed more resilient because when we slow down the water, the sediment and contaminants drop out of the water, making it cleaner. A slower moving river with less sediment in the water is better for our communities, infrastructure, roads, power lines – everything down river.” said EWEB Water Resources Supervisor Susan Fricke. 

Restoration projects help protect against fires.

Quartz Creek has faced decades of human impacts. Roads and berms forced the creek into a single, narrow channel that dug deeper through the years.

“It was in rough shape even before the fire. There wasn’t much good habitat here,” Colley said. “We’re providing rearing habitat, spawning habitat, shade, and food sources for aquatic species. Other wildlife will benefit, too.”

By increasing the wetted area from a single channel to a multi-channeled flow across 275 acres, the project will both help to reduce impacts from previous wildfires while also serving to slow down future wildfires.

“We're adding resiliency for our community because we're taking a narrow creek that's trapped in its channel, and we're increasing its floodplain to this much wider, wetter area, so when fires come through, they slow down or stop because of this amount of water and the higher humidity on the landscape,” Fricke said. “We're finding that these watershed restoration projects are both slowing down or stopping fires that approach them, and we're also able to use them as firebreaks for other wildfires that come up.” 

A similar Stage 0 restoration project on Deer Creek was the first in the McKenzie Valley. Started in 2016, Deer Creek’s expanded floodplain served as the fire containment line for both the 2021 Knoll Butte Fire and the 2023 Lookout Fire.

“We’re thinking about landscape-scale fire resiliency and firebreaks in a different way,” said Colley.

Resiliency work has personal resonance.

For Colley, working on the Quartz Creek Project is deeply personal. She lives in Vida. Like too many of her neighbors, she spent an agonizing two weeks in September of 2020 wondering if her home had survived the Holiday Farm Fire. 

“With something like a fire, you feel powerless, like, what can I do? How can I make things better?” she said.

Colley eventually received a drive-by video from a friend working on fire recovery efforts that showed her home was still standing amid scorched trees. At the time, she was already volunteering for the MWC as a resident partner. After the fire, she joined MWC professionally.

Initially, Colley’s work focused on helping the community recover through a consortium called Pure Water Partners. Colley mapped fire damage, coordinated efforts to replant burned properties throughout the community, and connected people in need of firewood to projects where trees were being removed to reduce fuels.

“When I started this work and right after the fire, I felt like fire was more of a thing that happens to us in the landscape. It felt like a disaster. It was scary to think that that could happen again,” Colley reflected. “I think now working with the landscape and with fire as a part of the landscape, I feel more like it's another component. It's something that we can work with. We can build resilience to fire on the landscape.”

“It’s work I was doing before the fire, but now it feels different. We’re bringing the water table back up, planting vegetation, and creating resilience for the future. That feels really good.”

The day that in-water work was completed, an excavator removed an earthen berm that held back water and the water rushed back across the restored floodplain. Colley and her team cheered. Parts of the valley floor became wet again for the first time in decades as the water branched through logjams and side channels, into “leave pools” and new islands. 

Colley watched as the floodplain she helped restore came back to life.

“This is what we’ve been building toward all along,” she said. “Seeing where the water decides to go now that we’ve set the stage – that’s the real success.”

Looking ahead, the team hopes to see Chinook salmon spawning, beavers expanding their territory, and a diversity of aquatic species calling Quartz Creek home.

“This is in my backyard,” Colley said. “Ten years from now, I can’t wait to see how it’s changed.”