Finding common ground

The Big Blackfoot Chapter of Trout Unlimited, in collaboration with many different private landowners, agencies and other non-profits, has been working over the past 30 years restoring habitat for trout populations across the Blackfoot and Clearwater watersheds.

Trout that live in Montana's rivers and streams rely on cold, clean water with plenty of open miles to swim long distances and ample hiding spaces in deep pools full of wood, root systems and overhanging trees. We are proud to work on projects across the watershed that meet multiple objectives and support a diversity of values.

One focus of our work involves addressing streams that suffer from past impacts and aren't able to heal on their own. When stream systems are out of balance or have lost their important streamside vegetation that hold banks together, they will try to regain their required depth, width and slope and many times that equates to too much pressure on streambanks. Waters will chew away at the margins and cause dirt from the banks to bleed, or erode, into the stream.

This erosion often causes streams to cut into the adjacent fields, causing sediment to accumulate and overwhelm a stream, filling in pools and covering the gravels necessary to support bug life and trout spawning beds. This systemic erosion is not only a deal breaker for native trout living in the stream, it also means that every year landowners are losing acres of important hay and grazing ground. Enough dirt to fill literally hundreds of dump trucks every year washes downstream on many of these tributaries creating impacts across miles of streams, lakes, reservoirs and natural wetlands

In an effort to continue our efforts and address high priority impaired streams feeding the Blackfoot River, last fall BBCTU was able to secure some funding through Montana Department of Environmental Quality's 319 grant program. This program is designed to address streams with high levels of sediment, nutrients and metals.

The money was directed towards developing two stream channel restoration designs on Poorman Creek and Nevada Creek, important trout streams flowing through reaches of private land. The projects once implemented will eventually benefit several miles of habitat. They will also protect landowners' important ground allowing them to continue to hay and graze under grazing management systems. And over time, as the newly planted willows and cottonwoods take hold and the stream recovers, many different types of birds, bears, bugs and trout will reap the benefits.

We applaud the vision of the many private landowners willing to work on these projects and feel this quote by the landowner on Nevada Creek sums it up nicely, "I don't like to see my hay meadows going down the creek, the Nevada Creek Water Users don't appreciate it filling their lake & the fish don't like me anymore. Seeing what was done on previous projects really opened my eyes that it might be possible to recapture what once was."

For more information on how to get involved, visit us at http://bbctu.org