The Calapooia Watershed

One of the many elements that makes this river special is that the steelhead population in the Calapooia is native and has never been supplemented or augmented with hatchery stock

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About the Calapooia

While there has been significant loss of habitat within the Calapooia Watershed, many natural features that historically promoted high fish and wildlife productivity are still intact. In addition to timber harvesting in the upper watershed, the watershed has been drained and used extensively for grass seed farming. Fortunately, many of the processes that have been altered by humans over the years are reversible.

The best riparian zones are found just east of Interstate 5, near Tangent. Backwater sloughs and native stands of Sitka and Pacific willow are also found throughout the basin. Courtney Creek contains mudflats that are the largest vernal pool communities remaining in the Valley. Many shorebirds also use the saturated soils, ponds, and low vegetation cover for winter habitat.

Home to two endangered species

fish populations

The Calapooia River is home to two species listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act: winter steelhead and spring Chinook. The Calapooia watershed steelhead represent the uppermost distribution of steelhead in the Willamette system. The steelhead population in the Calapooia is native and has never been supplemented or augmented with hatchery stock. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife conducts annual redd surveys to determine the steelhead population, and the Calapooia Watershed Council performs bi-annual surveys for redds in the upper Calapooia river. Spring Chinook salmon are also native to the basin however, spawning habitat was degraded throughout the 1940s to 1970s due to mass erosion and land movements from timber harvesting. By the 1970s, the natural production of spring Chinook was thought to be minimal or non-existent. Today’s population is from hatchery stock.

Stakeholders

Land ownership in the Calapooia watershed is approximately 94% private, making private landowner participation in improving watershed health very important.

Private stakeholders include agriculture, rural and urban landowners, timber resources (Weyerhaeuser, Inc. – 44,000 acres), businesses, and natural resources.

The public stakeholders include the US Forest Service (6,000 acres), Bureau of Land Management, Oregon State Parks, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Linn County, and Small Communities including Holley, Crawfordsville, Brownsville, Tangent, Shedd, and Albany.

state support

Oregon's Plan for salmon & watersheds

In 1997, state leaders established the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds to restore salmon and watershed health.

“Restoring our native fish populations and the aquatic systems that support them to productive and sustainable levels that will provide substantial environmental, cultural, and economic benefits.”

What is a Watershed?

We all live in one!

While some watersheds are relatively small, others encompass thousands of square miles and may contain streams, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and underlying groundwater that are hundreds of miles inland.

Water from hundreds, and often thousands, of creeks and streams flow from higher ground to rivers that eventually wind up in a larger waterbody. As the water flows, it often picks up pollutants, which may have sinister effects on the ecology of the watershed and, ultimately, on the reservoir, bay, or ocean where it ends up.

Not all water flows directly to the sea, however. When rain falls on dry ground, it can soak into, or infiltrate, the ground. This groundwater remains in the soil, where it will eventually seep into the nearest stream. Some water infiltrates much deeper, into underground reservoirs called aquifers. In other areas, where the soil contains a lot of hard clay, very little water may infiltrate. Instead, it quickly runs off to lower ground.

Rain and snowmelt from watersheds travel via many routes to the sea. During periods of heavy rain and snowfall, water may run onto and off of impervious surfaces such as parking lots, roads, buildings, and other structures because it has nowhere else to go. These surfaces act as “fast lanes” that transport the water directly into storm drains. The excess water volume can quickly overwhelm streams and rivers, causing them to overflow and possibly result in floods. (NOAA. What is a watershed? )

Much of Oregon’s natural resource management is based on watersheds. Watershed management organizes and guides land and other resource use to provide desired goods and services without adversely affecting soil and water resources. This type of management also recognizes the interrelationships among land use, soil, water and linkages between upland and downstream areas.

The Kalapuya People

The Calapooia Watershed Council acknowledges that we work on the traditional homeland of the Kalapuya people. There are more than fifty different ways of spelling Kalapuya, including Calapooia and Call-law-puh-yea.

The council is located in Brownsville, Oregon in the traditional territory of the Tsankupi (“Calapooia River”) band of the Kalapuya. After the Kalapuya Treaty (Treaty of Dayton) in 1855, Kalapuya people were forcibly removed to what are now the Grand Ronde and Siletz reservations, and are now members of Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.