Grant will fund habitat structures in Steptoe creek

The grant of $42,000 from the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office's Salmon Recovery Board will help add post and log structures to a section of Steptoe Creek to make the area more habitable to steelhead.

Each of the 76 structures the Palouse Conservation District plans to put in the creek costs $570. The Pomeroy ranger district of the U.S. Forest Service is providing $7,000 of wood material for the project.

The structures will help back up water to nourish shrubs and trees and create rest areas for fish.

Due to a culvert that was too high for the fish, steelhead had not been able to go more than a mile up Steptoe Creek for several years. With the culvert replaced with a county bridge, steelhead have a chance of getting farther up the creek.

Brad Johnson, Palouse Conservation District's watershed manager hopes to learn more about Steptoe Creek this spring. Currently, they don't know if Steptoe Creek has any good habitat.

Work on the project can begin next Aug. 15.

Johnson compared a fish always swimming against the stream and getting no rest to a person running on a treadmill; so long as they're moving, they're using energy, straining and stretching and burning fat; it's when they rest that they have the opportunity to grow and develop more muscle.

The stream structures, if they work properly, should provide pools where the fish can rest and may even sort out gravel, if any is available, to providing for better spawning and rearing habitat.

"It would be nice to get spawning pairs up there," said Johnson.

While steelhead, like other trout and salmon, will head back toward where they were born to lay their eggs, they are incredible swimmers who will nose into any pathway open to them and see how far that route takes them, called 'straying'. If they find an area that has good habitat, they may go ahead and lay their eggs there, but if not, they simply head back the way they came and move along.

"I would certainly enjoy seeing some fish in that creek," said Toby Uhlenkott, who owns property along the creek.

Uhlenkott raises beef, the same as his dad started back in the 50s.

The project has the potential to benefit the land by stabilizing some stream banks and directing water, which will help fight erosion. Uhlenkott is working with the conservation district and hopes to be there when they put in the structures.

Normally, 162 wild adult steelhead on average are counted going up Alpowa Creek which is also considered part of the Asotin Creek Population.

Last year, due to smaller runs, only about 50 wild adult steelhead were counted on Alpowa.

"Steptoe getting 20 to 40 adults would be awesome," Johnson commented.