High Water during heavy rain used to make Cedarhurst Neighborhood residents living at the end Sylvan Road nervous. The access road to their property crossed over a series of culverts over Spring Creek, a tributary to Clear Creek. When the creek rose, water backed up behind d1eculvcrtS, with potential to wash out their road. Long time residents of the neighborhood also recall fish spawning in their creek, and dropping a line in for steelhead and salmon. A recently completed habitat restoration project at this site, near Sylvan and Mattoon Road, is a win-win for both people, and salmon and steelhead. This summer and fall, the Clackamas River Basin Council helped the residents of the Cedarhurst Neighborhood remove the culverts and replace them with a bridge. Several large trees were strategically placed in the creek to create hiding places and resting pools for the fish. A recent email from a neighborhood resident is testimony to the benefits of the project
“I just wanted to let you know. The bridge … is BEAUTIFUL! And, best of all … this morning on our walk we saw four fish getting ready to spawn just upstream from the bridge. ”
After many years away- having been blocked from a stretch of cold clear water shaded by large cedar trees – Coho have returned to Spring Creek to spawn once again. Clear Creek, and it’s tributary, Spring Creek near Fisher’s Mill, is home to one of the last two substantial runs of wild late run Coho in the lower Columbia Basin. This Clackamas creek was once so famous for fishing, that in 1889 Rudyard Kipling, the British author best known for ”Jungle Book” and “Just So Stories”, wrote rapturously about fishing from a large rock at the mouth of Clear Creek in his ”From Sea to Sea” travel sketches. Entering the Clackamas River at Cancer, Clear Creek provides particularly important habitat for Coho and Steelhead spawning and rearing. This south side tributary has 100 miles of stream that can potentially harbor salmon and steelhead. The Clackamas River Basin Council (CRBC) has been working with volunteer
