The willow springs preserve restoration project is located along whychus creek in deschutes countydownstream of sisters on property owned by the deschutes land trust (DLT)

Whychus creek drains intothe deschutes river just upstream of lake billy chinook. Although portions of whychus creek haverecovered naturally since IT was channelized in the 1960's, much of the project reach provides poorsalmon, steelhead and resident fish habitat because channelization decreased fish habitat, increasedchannel incision, and eliminated the connection between the stream and the floodplain. Without streamchannel and floodplain restoration, whychus creek and the associated floodplain habitat will not reachits full ecological potential.funding will be used to implement on the ground restoration along 0.75 miles of whychus creekaccording to restoration designs. The upper deschutes watershed council (udwc) seeks to use therestoration project to accelerate stream evolution and recovery per established models of streamevolution to achieve the most ecological uplift possible under the site constraints, opportunities andpotential. Project implementation will minimize site disturbance, avoid artificial structures and will relyon natural materials appropriate to site conditions. These approaches all share similar goals of promoting normative rates of erosional and depositionalprocesses in whychus creek and its floodplain, reconnecting floodplains where possible, and raising thewater table to further support riparian and floodplain plant establishment.constructed post-assisted log structures (pals) and beaver DAM analog (BDA) structures will promotecomplex habitat evolution as they interact with successive high flow events. Restored watershedprocesses such as floodplain connectivity will allow dynamic channel movement, sediment and gravelsorting and deposition, raising of the valley wide water table and RE-establishment of wet meadow andriparian vegetation.