In the process, the miners helped turn the tiny creek that would eventually carry Eustache's name upside down.
Today, Eustache Creek cuts its way through piles of dredged material stacked up to 15 feet high on its banks. The ponds left by the historic placer mining activities add sediment to the creek and disrupt the natural streamflow, causing the water to stagnate and temperatures to rise.
The U.S. Forest Service and Trout Unlimited are working to do something about that.
Starting last summer, volunteers from the local Westslope Chapter of Trout Unlimited have strapped on their boots and taken to the field to begin gathering information and the materials needed to put Eustache Creek back together again.
If things go well - and there's no reason to think they won't - the cooperative effort may serve as a model for similar restoration efforts around the West.
“There are smaller placer sites like this all over the West,” said Rob Roberts, Trout Unlimited's western field coordinator. “Most of them have largely been left alone until now. We're hoping our efforts on Eustache Creek will serve as a nice trial run for similar projects elsewhere.”
Last summer, about 40 volunteers attended a training session held at the Forest Service's Ninemile District Ranger Office. Later, volunteers fanned out to gather a wealth of information about fish populations and habitat in Eustache Creek.
Last weekend, they were at it again.
Nearly 20 volunteers braved wintry weather to harvest willow cuttings in the upper Ninemile Valley. The cuttings were sorted and hauled to Bitterroot Restorations, where they'll be used to start the new willow bushes that will eventually line Eustache Creek.
“Willows are good stabilizing plants to plant back into disturbed riparian zones,” said Steve Dagger, a retired Forest Service silvaculturist volunteering on the project. “We want to put plants in that are adapted to this area. That's why we're taking cuttings from here.”
Volunteers collected seeds from alder bushes and red osier dogwood earlier. When those have sprouted into reasonably sized plants, they'll also be added to the mix to help stabilize the stream banks.
“Right now the small creek has basically no vegetation and is lined with big cobbles from all the dredging that's occurred over the years,” said Roberts. “Without any shading from vegetation, the water heats up in the summer. There's also a lot of sediment coming into the creek every year.”
“The restoration should help resolve those two problems,” he said.
Plans call for bringing in heavy equipment this summer to restore the meanders, the pools and the riffles that disappeared over 100 years ago on the 1.3-mile stretch of Eustache Creek.
Over time, Scott Spaulding hopes that eventually the new clean, clear waters will attract spawning bull trout and enable the few remaining westslope cutthroat trout to expand their numbers and range.
“Our hope is these improvements will favor native fish,” said the Ninemile Ranger District fisheries biologist. “We'd like to see bull trout reappear.”
And that's a distinct possibility. Last summer Trout Unlimited volunteers found a bull trout in Devil's Creek - the stream that comes together with Eustache to form the headwaters of Ninemile Creek. Ninemile Creek is considered a priority watershed for bull trout restoration.
Equally important is the potential for this project to become a springboard for similar efforts.
“If we can demonstrate some success, there's a lot of potential for partnerships like this all over the West,” said Spaulding. “This was a good place to start. It's an intermediate-sized project. It's not so big that it won't get done and it's not so small that it's just a blip on the map.”
The work was originally slated to be paid for through receipts from a salvage sale on timber that burned in 2000. The Forest Service completed the necessary environmental documentation, but the sale and restoration work was stopped following a lawsuit.
The judge later allowed the watershed restoration work to continue, but without the timber sale, funding was problematic.
Trout Unlimited's Roberts went to work searching out grants and to date has come up with $35,000 to add to the nearly $100,000 the Forest Service has allocated so far toward the project.
The Eustache Creek Abandoned Mine Restoration Project is typical of Trout Unlimited's collaborative approach to improving water quality and fish habitat through stream restoration projects, said Roberts. By engaging community members, local government, and state and federal agencies, Trout Unlimited has effectively become the only nonprofit organization in the West with a program to clean up this unfortunate legacy of historical hardrock mining, he said.
“What happens here could eventually become a model for what can be done to rebuild streams all over the West,” said Gary Fee of Trout Unlimited's Westslope Chapter.
Local Trout Unlimited members were anxious to get out in the woods and get something accomplished on the grass-roots level. This project fit perfectly, he said.
“We were looking to get people involved with a project when all of a sudden all of the stars aligned,” said Fee. “When we realized that the Forest Service, FWP (Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks) and Trout Unlimited were all united to work on this project we knew this would work for us.”
Reporter Perry Backus can be reached at 523-5259 or at pbackus@missoulian.com
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