By ROSELYNN YAZZIE

Office of Public Affairs

FORT HALL – Construction on the Spring Creek Enhancement Project at the Fort Hall Bottoms, located near Cable Bridge, is underway to benefit the area for fish and wildlife.

On Tuesday, November 5 Shoshone-Bannock Tribes Fish & Wildlife Department’s Hunter Osborne was on site with Michael Homza, Hydraulic and Habitat Enhancement Engineer with ESA of Boise.   

Osborne explained that the work was part of a series of plans that began upstream with the Broncho Road/Broncho Bridge Project, Diggie Creek Project, and below the Doug Sloping Project.

Osborne said the work takes time, but they can do more planning, design, and permitting now that they have additional resources through an agreement with the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and is accordingly designed to satisfy BPA’s current Habitat Improvement Program. Its acquired approvals included the Clean Water Act Section 401 Water Quality Certification, Joint Application for Permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Idaho Department of Water Resources, and the Idaho Department of Lands, and Cultural Resource Compliance.

“Using those project dollars we’re able to approach this more meaningful, with more foresight, more planning,” he said, yielding a “better” project overall.

Osborne said they’ve addressing problems gathered from tribal member input at public meetings, and internal input from Tribal staff before implementation.

“This project provides much benefit to native fish, primarily Yellowstone cutthroat trout, which is a sensitive species here in the Upper Snake River Basin. The Bottoms is a highly sensitive area and has been receiving negative effects, here in this area, from reservoir operations from the American Falls Reservoir,” he said.

He explains when the reservoir is ramped up it creates fluctuations in water depth.

“High levels and rapid drawdowns for the users downriver will leave a bare bank and a bank that’s unstable, that’s the main cause of the negative impacts here,” said Osborne.

Streambank sloughing leaves a high vertical streambank limiting access for users and widened channels decreasing needed trout habitat.

The project’s goals will include:

• Restoring, enhancing, and protecting the habitat for Yellowstone cutthroat and other native fish and aquatic species;
• Develop resilient, naturally appearing, naturally functioning, self-sustaining geomorphically appropriate stream ecosystems;
• Create and enhance habitat connectivity between the stream ecosystem and the larger ecosystem on the Fort Hall Bottoms for the benefit of all native fish, birds, and wildlife;
• Align resource management with traditional connections between Tribal members and the reservation lands and waters;

Large fluctuations from the reservoir operations being the main cause for limiting factors, such as high sediment in the stream, covering much-needed spawning gravels for fish, and widened channels from the banks will contribute to lower water temperatures that will limit fish habitat.

“Years and years of that erosion have put fine sediments in here because this is a low gradient stream. They need flushing flows, like annual floods. This, Bottoms no longer experiences because of operations down and up that are messing with the natural hydrology of the system here to flush these flows out,” said Osborne.

Osborne said their previous projects have yielded higher numbers of fish using the areas that they’ve enhanced. He’s hopeful the same will go for this area and the same type of positive response, higher fish numbers, higher waterfowl use, higher revegetation on the banks, and a more stable, successful, bank mitigating the bank sloughing due to the reservoir operations, as well as improved access for tribal members and other users.

Homza said the creek currently isn’t in a healthy position.

He explains, “Say 300 years ago, before there was ever any human influence here, this channel was a channel of the larger Snake River system. This was likely intermittently active with the Snake River flows but then after all the dams were put in this area, it just doesn’t flood like it used to and now it’s only spring-fed. So, the channels are a little bit oversized to begin with and that’s another contributing factor.”

Homza explained, that the river is out of balance and is trying to adjust and what they’re attempting to do is fast-forward the process by filling the edges by taking design cues from the stream itself.

“We’re stabilizing the banks and narrowing it down, making it deeper and the sentiment will keep going and move out of the system,” said Homza. “We’re building a resilient habitat by fast forwarding this project, getting the shape of this creek, laying the slopes back, and getting it vegetated. Right now, if you look at the banks, they’re steep, they’re vertical and it’s just not holding itself, by laying the banks back we’re just getting the system to where it can be stable, it can grow the vegetation, and part of that we’ll see more beaver come back and just kind of build a whole ecosystem.”

The area is important as it’s at the upstream end of the American Falls Reservoir and is where the access is.

As part of the design, they looked into the cultural elements of the site to make sure not to disturb them.

Another thing the area is utilized for is emergency response when boats need to get down to the reservoir.  

They’ll also work on a tributary coming through a three-foot diameter culvert, which is perched meaning it discharges out and the fish can’t get back up. The project will replace the culvert with a bigger one that the fish can swim up. As a result, it will add more habitat for the juveniles. Currently, there are very few fish in there, and once completed it will be a good baseline to see if there’s a lot more.

Construction has been going on since August 2024 and they have a timeline through 2025 with weather permitting. There are also plans to implement a three-year stewardship program to maintain the vegetation. They’re collaborating with Living Earth, LLC out of Twin Falls and Wetlands Nursey Manager Zach Wadsworth regarding the project to ensure they have the right native vegetation species that will flourish.

The site at Cable Bridge is still accessible to tribal members, however, use caution near areas of heavy equipment, survey markers, and excavation areas and materials.

Eagle Rock Timber Inc. is doing the construction and has hired TERO-certified Shoshone-Bannock tribal members Kerwin Toane and Rocky Burns, and Eastern Shoshone tribal member Kirk Weed.

Osborne said the project wouldn’t be possible without approval from the Fort Hall Business Council, Policy, Land Use Commission, Water Commission, Cultural Resources and additional Natural Resources staff supporting the project, the Tribal membership, and Bonneville Power Administration.

(Photos courtesy of the Office of Public Affairs)