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The Greatest Job in the World: River Restoration

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Guess I’m still playing with Tonka Trucks these days…just on a little bigger scale!
It’s not every day you get to custom build salmon spawning habitat!

Back in 2007, I was blessed with having the world’s greatest job…I was hired as a consultant to a spawning bed restoration project on the Stanislaus River in California.

My responsibilities: Direct two front loaders on where to dump gravel and boulders. Not only was the pay outstanding, but taking a thrashed river and making it pristine for Chinook and trout was awfully good for the soul! And, let’s be honest here, driving those big tractors around was pretty fun too!

We started the project carefully sifting and washing 200 tons of perfect spawning cobble and then added a couple hundred boulders in 1- to 7-ton range…

Then we went to work…


Here’s a look at what a lot of the river looked like before we started…

And, from a slightly different angle, when we were done…

Check out how dismal this side channel looked before…

Here’s how she looked after the work…

Before…

After…

Again, much of this stretch of river was sluggish and silted in before the work began…not exactly pristine habitat…

What a world of difference, eh?

When it was all said & done, we added 33 new riffles to a short 2-mile stretch of river…

On the last day, Dennis Hood of KDH Environmental and I toured the site & admired our handiwork…

Apparently, the salmon like their new home…

Removing the Elwah River Dams Timelapse

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This is such an awesome sight…the two dams on Washington’s Elwah River coming down. The project is especially cool because the watershed above the old reservoirs is in Olympic National Park…and is thus protected and pristine.

Over the past couple seasons, salmon and steelhead habe neen repopulating the upper reaches of the drainage!

Steelhead Return to Malibu Lagoon!

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Malibu Lagoon
Malibu Creek in Southern California was once a good producer of wild steelhead. But you know the story…civilization popped up all around the creek and it got completely trashed. Well, that’s changing now. There’s a big restoration effort going on in Malibu Lagoon, which is the creek’s estuary, which has been channelized, dewatered and filled with construction debris for decades.

Apparently, the effort is working! On May 15, a 20-inch adult steelhead was spotted swimming in the lagoon — while there have been a few adult fish in the creek itself in recent years, a steelie hasn’t been spotted in the estuary for over a decade.

The restoration work is moving along nicely!

The restoration work is moving along nicely!

You can read more about the lagoon HERE

Also be sure to check out the Malibu Lagoon Restoration Project

Now, we need to get rid of this baby further up Malibu Creek…Rindge Dam:

Rindge Dam: Blocking steelhead for decades

Rindge Dam: Blocking steelhead for decades

The Greatest Job in the World!

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I'm still playing with Tonka trucks...they're just a little bigger these days!


A few years back, I was blessed with having the world’s greatest job…I was hired as a consultant to a spawning bed restoration project on the Stanislaus River in California.

My responsibilities: Direct two front loaders on where to dump gravel and boulders. Not only was the pay outstanding, but taking a thrashed river and making it pristine for Chinook and trout was awfully good for the soul! And, let’s be honest here, driving those big tractors around was pretty fun too! Here are some before and after pix…Click here to read more…