Nason Creek - Kahler reach

It's always fun kicking off new projects and the Kahler reach project on Nason Creek was different. Historically Nason Creek was severely impacted by the construction of HWY 2, the railroad, and the BPA poweline corridor. All these impacts have left the creek little room to migrate and create good habitat conditions for salmon.

All that being said there are some isolated areas of good habitat with this natural logjam being a prime example. The logjam is obstructing about 50% of the channel width and in the process creating a 6-8ft deep scour pool, back-watering flows onto the floodplain, and sorting channel bed sediments. Also equally impressive is that this natural logjam is all keyed or supported by a large (3ft+ dia) cottonwood tree that additional mobile wood has racked again providing support for the importance of mature floodplain forests.