On-the-Ground Projects

Projects are underway currently to address limiting factors within the Bear Creek watershed. The projects are diverse in application, in ownership and are geographically diverse as well.  

OWEB also funds a Small Grants Program that may provide landowners with money for 'on-the-ground projects.

This page is currently 'under construction' as we update information on these projects.  Please check back again for the revised information.

Background

The Bear Creek Watershed Council (BCWC) mission is to protect, enhance and restore the Bear Creek watershed.  It implicitly recognizes that specific goals for improvement will vary between locations.  The council goal also is to create a science-guided process that incorporates local priorities into watershed improvement projects.

Watershed improvement is a change in the structure and function of a degraded watershed.  The following illustration shows the relationship between activities taken to address watershed structure and function.  The model applies to watersheds that have been degraded through time.

The Restoration Committee is developing a list of priority watershed improvement actions for each part of the watershed.  To provide consistency, the OWEB Restoration Project Types inventory is used to organize and categorize potential project types.  The current inventory is not inclusive of all project types and the framework allows local partners to propose alternative activities by defining specific goals that fall into specific categories within the framework.  The goals is to identify the key limiting  factors impacting the watershed conditions, describe actions needed to address these factors, and help guide local restoration planning and regional funding decisions.

Restoration is defined as the return of a watershed to a close approximation of its condition prior to disturbance.  Others define restoration as the reestablishment of the structure and function of a watershed, including its natural biodiversity.  Restoration can be achieved by passive means (e.g. removal of human disturbance to allow natural processes to be the primary agents of recovery).  Restoration can also be achieved by more active means (e.g. restoration of dysfunctional aquatic-riparian/watershed ecosystems by actively managing some aspects of habitat recovery).  These activities are contrasted with Rehabilitation as defined later.

Enhancement can be defined as deliberately increasing the abundance or functional importance of selected habitat characteristics.  Modifications might be outside the range of conditions that would occur naturally at a site.  The strategy involves technological intervention and substitution of artificial for natural habitat elements.

Rehabilitation can be defined as the reestablishment of naturally self-sustaining aquatic-riparian (watershed) ecosystems to the extent possible, while acknowledging irreversible changes such as dams, permanent channel changes due to urbanization and roads, stream channel incision and floodplain losses.  Rehabilitation might permit only partial restoration of ecological functions.

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