Successful Applicant:
Morell River Management Cooperative
Award:
$12,200
Project Title:
Stream Habitat Enhancement within the St. Peter's Bay Area
Project Gallery:
Project Summary:
This habitat enhancement project took place within the St. Peter’s Bay and St. Peter’s Lake drainage basins. This drainage basin consists of the Morell River, Marie River, Midgell River, St. Peter’s River, Bristol Creek and Schooner Creek. Project goals included:
• Enhancing water quality in tributaries • Increasing fish cover and bank stabilization • Improved access for stream enhancement work, surveys and monitoring activities • Effective use of time and resources • Data collection for improved efficiencies in enhancement efforts, to share with other interested parties, and to compare with previously collected data • Increase biodiversity of riparian tree species • Remove blockages and debris to allow fish and water passage within all river systems in the St Peter’s Bay area
The results of the project included installing 92 brush mats to remove excess silt and uncover preferred spawning habitat. We created 34 fish cover and bank stabilization logs to provide cover and prevent bank erosion. A total of 500 trees were planted in various sections of riparian habitat to increase diversity. The Morell river Management Cooperative (MRMC) maintained access trails and created new ones for efficient access to project sites.
Barriers to fish passage were removed in a number of streams allowing fish to migrate and improved stream flow. Monitoring activities included installing 26 data loggers, a creel census, redd surveys, CABIN and electrofishing index sites. All project results were completed by hiring 8 staff plus the Watershed Coordinator. This project has directly benefited wildlife by improving water quality and riparian zone diversity with future benefits through the collection of baseline data.