Skip to Content

Important notice regarding portal availability

EWEB is upgrading our customer information and billing system to better serve our customers. Some payment options, including online bill pay, pay-by-phone, and Walmart Pay will be unavailable during the last week of November. Click here to learn more.


(Close)

Related News

  • Related News

  • EWEB Launches 2024 Residential Customer Survey

    EWEB has again partnered with professional research firm, GreatBlue Research, Inc., to conduct a survey of residential customers, starting October 30, 2024.

    Find Out More
  • EWEB Holds First Annual Truck-or-Treat Event at Roosevelt Operations Center

    Hundreds of customer and crew families came together under sunny skies to gather candy and marvel at our fantastic fleet.

    Find Out More
  • Spill Drill 2024: EWEB & partners practice containing hazardous materials spills on McKenzie River

    EWEB coordinates the drill as part of our work to protect the McKenzie River – the source of drinking water for more than 200,000 residents of the Eugene metro area.

    Find Out More
  • Imagine a Day Without Water 2024

    Learn how you can prepare for an extended water outage.

    Find Out More
  • 2024 Public Power Week Poster Contest

    To celebrate Public Power Week, EWEB is held our annual poster contest for fifth graders in our service area. Help us choose the winners.

    Find Out More
  • Show More
MRT, USFS wrap construction at Finn Rock Reach

September 08, 2021

An aerial view shows the recently restored floodplain of Finn Rock Reach. Photo by Brent Ross, McKenzie River Trust

The McKenzie River Trust, Willamette National Forest, and BCI Construction recently completed Phase One of the Finn Rock Reach floodplain restoration project. 

The project along the McKenzie River above Quartz Creek enhances valuable floodplain habitat for endangered Chinook salmon, bull trout, and western pond turtles. The approach can also help buffer the river from debris slides and serve as natural storage for clean water.

"Rivers have been harnessed and confined for the last 150 years," says Joe Moll, Executive Director for the Trust.  "Seeing the water reinhabit such an expansive, diverse floodplain offers some hope in trying times."

Finn Rock Reach is the latest testing ground for a creative approach to restoration that aims to bring back much of the complexity that makes floodplains such productive habitats and valuable water resources. These projects are designed to increase the breadth and depth of areas where water can move and linger among smaller channels, deep pools, islands, and jumbles of downed trees. That increased residence time helps cool, clean and hold water, providing a wealth of good for fish, wildlife, and people.

"Historically, wood and sediment would have settled out in this valley. The river was really dynamic, and multiple channels would move around, and change all the time," said Willamette National Forest Fisheries Biologist Kate Meyer. Floodplains allow water to spread out across the landscape and slow down. That not only mitigates fire and drought risk but allows sediment to drop out, improving water quality.

"The more floodplains the better," EWEB Water Resources Supervisor Susan Fricke said. "We increase resiliency when we let the ecosystem function as it's supposed to."

In recent years, the Willamette National Forest, McKenzie Watershed Council, and EWEB collaborated on a similar approach to restoration on the South Fork of the McKenzie and on Deer Creek. Those projects have been remarkably productive for fish and wildlife, and notably resilient to fire.

"The whole idea is to try to do this across as many of the creeks as we can," EWEB's Watershed Restoration Program Manager Karl Morgenstern said. "Our prime directive at EWEB is to provide reliable, safe drinking water to our community. That means protecting water quality at the source - miles upstream from the metro area - and all the way to the tap at community homes and businesses."

Wild Chinook salmon will move out of the mainstem McKenzie and spawn in these floodplain waters throughout September. 

The Finn Rock Reach team is excited to see how they respond to these enhanced habitats. At South Fork and Deer Creek, salmon spawning bed (redd) counts increased by as much as twenty-fold in the weeks post-construction.

"What we're seeing for these valley-bottom restoration projects is, if you build it, they will come," Fricke said.

Finn Rock Reach floodplain from above Conservation Youth Crew came to help with fish salvageUSFS, MRT staff collect fish to protect them from construction impactsThis sculpin was removed from a side-channel and put into the mainstream of the McKenzie so construction could continue.Wood structures provide habitat for juvenile fish and help slow down the flow of the water.