Sandy River Basin
Mission of the basin
Collaborate with nonprofits, agencies, and businesses to augment the recovery of endangered species.
About
The lushly forested Sandy River basin delivers drinking water to Portland and provides cold-water refuges for the summer migration of threatened salmon and steelhead from the Columbia River.
Despite past degradation, the basin has shown immense potential to revive its native fish populations. The Sandy River Basin Partners (Partners) formed in 1999, and The Freshwater Trust (TFT) helped lead the development of a holistic restoration strategy, a hierarchical framework of the most efficient projects that address the aquatic and floodplain habitat restoration needs for fish recovery.
Guided by this strategy, TFT has been working with the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to complete projects at prioritized sites on public lands in the Upper Sandy. Actions include large wood placement, side channel and floodplain reconnection, and fish passage improvements.
After more than two decades of steady restoration, the Sandy continues to see strong fish returns, making it an outlier in stark contrast to the downward trajectories seen throughout the Pacific Northwest. The Partners are updating the restoration strategy to include climate change initiatives and to evaluate progress made to date. We anticipate that all Upper Sandy basin restoration projects can be completed by 2031, thus increasing resilience for this basin in the face of climate change.
At A Glance
Restoration Actions
Large wood placement for channel complexity | Side channel augmentation and reconnection | Floodplain restoration
Species Benefited
Spring Chinook | Coho | Winter Steelhead
Areas Worked
Boulder Creek | Cast Creek | Clear Fork Sandy River | Lady Creek | Lost Creek | Salmon River | Sixes Creek | South Fork Salmon River | Still Creek | Zigzag River
Partners & Funders
City of Portland | Jubitz Family Foundation | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration | Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board | Pacific Power | Sandy River Basin Partners | Spirit Mountain Community Fund | U.S. Bureau of Land Management | U.S. Forest Service
Role of TFT Technology
StreamBank® Monitoring App captures pre- and post-project data and photos for tracking project success and adaptive management.
Uplift: Miles of stream function restored
26.3
Total # of Projects
51
Dollars Invested
$14.2 million
Large Wood Structures Built
305
Local Jobs Supported
120+
Our Work in the Sandy
View Impact Explorer
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