- Details
- By Tribal Business News Staff
- Real Estate
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation acquired 100 acres of Birch Creek Ranch in eastern Oregon, completing a Sept. 26 with the Western Rivers Conservancy and Bonneville Power Administration.
The property, southwest of Pendleton, includes more than a mile of Birch Creek, the Umatilla River basin’s largest producer of endangered mid-Columbia summer steelhead. The creek also supports chinook, coho salmon and rainbow trout, per a CTUIR press release.
The tribes will rename the property Kwálkwal and plan to restore more than a mile of stream and floodplain, removing an earthen barrier that has blocked fish migration for decades. The tribes will keep the ranch's water in the creek rather than diverting it for irrigation or other uses.
“The Umatilla River was once one of the mid-Columbia’s major producers of salmon and steelhead, but decades of water withdrawals and other habitat impacts devastated the river’s fish runs,” Anton Chiono, tribal habitat conservation project leader, said in a statement.
The ranch also provides habitat for Rocky Mountain elk, mule deer, pronghorn, cougar, golden eagle, wild turkey, osprey and Canada goose. It includes a spring complex and a section of Stewart Creek, which joins Birch Creek downstream.
Jessica Inwood, Washington state project manager with Western Rivers Conservancy, called the partnership one of "the most significant fisheries recovery projects in the Columbia Basinn.
The acquisition follows a January conservation easement on 943 acres at the confluence of Birch Creek and the Umatilla River, completed by the tribes, Western Rivers Conservancy, Blue Mountain Land Trust and BPA.
Together, the projects are intended to expand floodplain restoration and support fisheries recovery in the Umatilla Basin.
