Near a suburban downtown, a new overlook gives visitors a glimpse of salmon swimming past in a restored creek below.
In a busy park, 60 logs installed to improve fish habitat combine with viewpoints to offer a new experience of place.
Bridges that replace fish-blocking culverts in a dense neighborhood become settings for watching wildlife.
Three recent projects – Klein Point, Mount Scott and Crystal Springs – exemplify Metro's innovative Nature in Neighborhoods capital grants program. All three improve people's experience of nature while contributing to significant restoration of fish passage and habitat along highly urbanized creeks.
Klein Point
Klein Point's restoration is the first stage in transforming the City of Milwaukie's parking lot and boat ramp into a reinvigorated Riverfront Park. The human centerpiece of the project is an elegant stone scenic overlook directly above the site where fast-flowing Johnson Creek merges with the Willamette River. The confluence is a remarkably remote-feeling setting, considering that the bluff is adjacent to bustling McLoughlin Boulevard.
The overlook offers a unique vantage point up and down the Willamette, with particularly long, unfettered views of the river and Elk Rock Island. Shading the overlook is a 200-year-old Oregon white oak.
Johnson Creek plays a vital role for federally listed chinook, coho and steelhead, among other species. Metro's Nature in Neighborhood's capital grant supported $225,000 of the $675,400 project and supplemented the Johnson Creek Watershed Council's restoration work. At the confluence, 150 massive logs were installed to form a log jam for fish habitat. Rocks designed to create a naturalistic riffle help fish migrate over a sewer pipe. Six acres of riparian habitat are being restored as part of the project, and volunteers are planting native trees and shrubs.
Interpretive signs will tell the story of the habitat enhancement, as well as the Portland Traction Line, a trolley that traveled between Oregon City and Portland during the late 1800s.
The half-acre parcel donated by Gary and Sharon Klein adds to Milwaukie's 8-acre site, where a transformation has been a long time coming. JoAnn Herrigel, community services director for the city, began working on the park 15 years ago.
"We started with 50 years of inherited plans that never went anywhere," Herrigel said. "This is the first successful effort at reclaiming the riverfront."
Long-range plans include the creation of walkways, benches, a floating dock, event space and picnic areas, and further restoration at the Kellogg Creek confluence at the property's south end. "The hope," Herrigel said, "is that this park will become Milwaukie's 'living room.'"
Mount Scott Creek
North Clackamas Park's trails, baseball fields, picnic shelters, off-leash dog area and play structures make it a constantly busy and very popular park. Surrounded by neighborhoods, the park is also the site of the confluence of salmon-bearing Mount Scott Creek and its shallow tributary, Camas Creek. The eroded creeks have been unappreciated, their shores and native vegetation trampled by people and dogs.
Metro's Nature in Neighborhoods grant provided $150,034 of the $450,222 restoration cost. Sixty logs were installed to give fish nooks and crannies to rest during their migrations. Many species of native fish – including sculpin, redside shiners, dace and crayfish – have been observed in the creek. A culvert was removed so Camas Creek can once again flow freely. Thousands of native plants will restore the riparian forest habitat along the shores. Additional funding was acquired for a new backchannel alcove to offer salmon refuge. The goal is not just to help fish, but to increase visitors' awareness of this special natural resource.
Gail Shaloum, environmental policy specialist with Clackamas County Water Environment Services, said, "This is the first in-stream project like this that we've had an opportunity to construct. It was exciting to see it, in just a little over a year, go from paper and pencil to being built. We hope we'll be able to do more projects like this."
The agency worked closely with North Clackamas Parks and Recreation District, which manages the park. "This became a really amazing natural resource benefit for our park to provide to the community, besides just strict recreation," said natural resources coordinator Tonia Burns.
A walk west along the trail now begins with a new bridge accessible to people with disabilities crossing Camas Creek, followed by an overlook at the confluence of Camas and Mount Scott creeks. Continuing along, the path passes the log installation. At a bend in Mount Scott Creek, an overlook reveals views in both directions of the water and surrounding habitat. Beyond that is a restored streambank riparian area. Interpretive signs accompanying the new access will help create a strong connection to nature and fresh appreciation of the creeks.
Crystal Springs restoration
On an otherwise ordinary city street, on a one-third acre lot, the Crystal Springs restoration project is transforming a Southeast Portland neighborhood. Until recently the site of a triplex, carport and driveway, the property is becoming an excellent salmon stream and a lush pocket of nature.
Crystal Springs has a constant spring-fed flow with cool temperatures that make it a potential spawning, rearing and refuge habitat for Portland's most threatened fish species. The project site's 350 feet of stream featured three culverts that were a barrier to fish passage.
Full-scale restoration involved deconstructing the buildings and the culvert they sat on, replacing the other culverts with two attractive bridges that give full fish passage, adding in-stream logs and restoring a wetland with nearly 4,000 plants, including native trees like cedar, cottonwood, willow and red osier dogwood.
With such a unique and remarkable pocket of nature in their midst, neighbors formed the Crystal Springs Partnership to serve as a catalyst for further improvements and to help individual property owners become better stewards.
"It's creating a buzz," said Kaitlin Lovell, program manager for the City of Portland's Bureau of Environmental Services. The Metro grant funded $311,480 of the $1.45 million project. The triplex landowners donated part of their property and sold the remainder to the city. "It was a small contribution to the big picture, but it was the start," Lovell said. "I also credit the Metro grant with getting us to think about how to engage the neighborhood more proactively."
A welcoming entryway of bricks leads to a soft path with a viewpoint. Now, along this highly urbanized creek, neighbors have already spotted a kingfisher. Beavers are burrowing in the banks and restoration plans include leaving some of the willows without protective plastic bark shields so the beavers can use them.
Neighbors can sit on their porches and listen to the burbling of the stream as it meanders over the logs, and keep an eye out for new species of wildlife, along with the busy beavers.
Nature in Neighborhoods capital grants
The voter-approved 2006 natural areas bond measure allotted $15 million to create the Nature in Neighborhoods capital grants program. While the overall bond measure focuses on the region, the capital grants program benefits individual neighborhoods to improve access to nature and natural areas. The concept arose from regional, community-driven efforts to identify park-deficient areas.
The program helps create or enhance jewels of nature in local communities. Habitat improvements protect wildlife and endangered species, and people discover a new connection with nature on a day-to-day basis.
The grants help transform communities because they involve diverse groups, foster partnerships and lead to more livable neighborhoods. "These projects typically have multiplier effects because they can be connected to affordable housing, and economic development and redevelopment," said Mary Rose Navarro, Metro's natural areas grants coordinator. "We're always looking at the broader social, economic and watershed context."
Thus far, $6.6 million has been awarded to 24 projects. Neighborhood and community groups, nonprofit organizations, schools, cities, counties and public parks providers are eligible for the grants. Forms and further information are available at www.oregonmetro.gov/capitalgrants.
"Voters wanted to see natural areas coming into their own communities," said Metro Councilor Carlotta Collette, whose district includes the Klein Point and Mount Scott projects. "These parks are a wonderful collaboration that give people in neighborhoods a sense of ownership. They become amazing assets in the communities, and a multi-generational gift."
Through the capital grants program, communities are using determination and creativity to help wildlife thrive, and finding new ways to experience nature nearby.