gravel extraction symposium...... northwest hydraulic consultants, inc. ... impacts of gravel...

Regional Symposium on

In-stream Gravel Extraction and its Effects on Fish Habitats

Wednesday–Thursday, April 12–13, 2006

South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, Charleston, OR

Co-organizers

Guillermo R. Giannico and Frank Burris,

Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon Sea Grant, and Extension Service, Oregon State University

and

Jim Waldvogel

Oregon Sea Grant Extension and Del Norte County Extension, University of California, Davis

Sponsors

Oregon Department of Environmental Quality

Oregon Sea Grant

Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board

Oregon Department of State Lands

Program

Wednesday, April 12

9:30 am – Welcome

Guillermo Giannico, Dept. Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University

Frank Burris, Dept. Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University

Jim Waldvogel, Oregon Sea Grant Extension, UC Extension Del Norte County

9:45 am – Technical Background to Symposium’s Theme: In-stream Gravel Extraction

Pete Klingeman, Department of Civil Engineering, Oregon State University

• Rivers as sources and storage units for sediment of all sizes

• Competing management goals and uses for rivers—relation to gravel

extraction

10:00 am – Break

10:10 am – River Processes—How Do Rivers Provide Gravel?

Michael Church, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia

• Origins of gravel in the river system

• Gravel budget: how much gravel do we really have?

• What happens when we take gravel away from the channel?

11:30 am – Questions

11:45 am – Lunch

12:15 pm – Gravel Sources and Extraction (CANCELLED)

Mathias Kondolf, Department of Landscape Architecture/Environmental Planning,

University of California, Berkeley

• Overview of gravel sources: instream, floodplain, terrace, hardrock quarry

• Comparing practice/regulation in Washington and California

• Assessing impacts at the river basin scale

1:30 pm – Questions

1:45 pm – Break

2:30 pm – Annual Monitoring—Components and Importance

Robert MacArthur, Northwest Hydraulic Consultants, Inc.

• Design and Use of Monitoring Programs

• Needs: Agency concerns, permit compliance/requirements, annual

management of mining activities

• Assessing changes and trends


3:45 pm – Break

4:00 pm – Industry Position, Needs, and Harvesting Techniques (Part I)

Rich Angstrom, Oregon Concrete and Aggregate Producers Association

• General industry position, history and economics

Ron Rathburn, PBS Engineering and Environmental

• Fish and wildlife considerations

Jeff Johnson, Northwest Hydraulic Consultants Inc.

• Planning and implementation of gravel mines: river engineering issues

5:00 pm – Panel Discussion

Facilitators: Guillermo Giannico and Frank Burris

Panelists: Rich Angstrom, Michael Church, Jeff Johnson, Peter Klingeman, Mathias

Kondolf, Robert MacArthur, Ron Rathburn.

6:00 pm – End of first day

_____________________________________________________________________________

Thursday, April 13

7:45 am – Coffee and pastries

8:00 am – Review of Day 1

Review of goals and objectives of symposium (Guillermo Giannico)

Review of processes and technical aspects (Pete Klingeman)

8:15 am – Site-specific Harvest Methods to Minimize Impacts to Salmonids

Dennis Halligan, Natural Resources Management Corporation

• Brief history of past harvesting methods and their impacts

• New Mad River extraction planning protocol and methods

• Flexibility for years of low recruitment


9:15 am – Break

9:30 am – Industry Position, Needs, and Harvesting Techniques (Part II)

Dorian Kuper, Kuper Consulting L.L.C.

• Rocks and rivers: we need both. The future of Oregon coastal aggregate

resources.

Bill Yokum, Freeman Rock

• Use of alluvial gravels, harvest techniques and economics


10:15 am – Using In-stream Gravel Extraction Methods to Restore or Enhance Habitat

Dennis Halligan, Natural Resources Management Corporation

• Methods that could be used for enhancement (e.g. alcoves, oxbows, terrace

skims)

• Examples of projects

• Volume considerations and cost vs. salmonid benefit


11:00 am – Gravel Mining and Salmonid Habitat

Anne Mullan, NOAA - Fisheries

Brian Cluer, NOAA - Fisheries

• Disturbance regimes and cumulative effects

• Changes to morphology and sediment size

• Water quality and vegetation impacts

• Habitat recovery perspectives


12: 15 pm – Lunch

1:00 pm – Panel Discussion

Facilitators: Guillermo Giannico and Jim Waldvogel

Panelists: Rich Angstrom, Michael Church, Brian Cluer, Dennis Halligan, Jeff

Johnson, Peter Klingeman, Dorian Kuper, Robert MacArthur, Anne Mullan, Ron

Rathburn, and Bill Yocum.

• Main points made and lessons learned from symposium

• Application these have for current gravel extraction

• Suggestions offered for changes in approaches to gravel extraction

• Where do we go from here in the context of responsible gravel mining?

2:00 pm – Adjourn

Acknowledgments

The organizers of this symposium wish to thank Harry Hoogesteger (South Coast

Watershed Council) for encouraging us to organize this meeting, and Pam Blake (Oregon

Department of Environmental Quality) for providing the initial support that made it all

happen. We also want to recognize John Bragg (South Slough National Estuarine

Research Reserve) for his extremely valuable logistical support and for arranging access

to the excellent facilities of his Reserve. We want to acknowledge Wendy Hudson

(Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board) for her commitment to helping many

community organizations participate in this symposium. We owe special thanks to all the

speakers for their excellent contributions toward advancing our knowledge through their

oral presentations and their summary papers (which are compiled in this CD-ROM).

Peter Klingeman provided a wealth of ideas and a lot of coaching, both of which

contributed significantly to the success of this meeting. Finally, we would like to express

our gratitude to Donna Fouts (OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife) and Cathy

McBride and Marge Stevens (Oregon Sea Grant) for their invaluable assistance in

making the symposium a reality, and to Rick Cooper (Oregon Sea Grant

Communications), who coordinated the digital production of these proceedings.

© 2006 Oregon State University

This research was supported by the National Sea Grant College Program of the U.S.

Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under

NOAA Grant # NA16RG1039 (project number A/SD-13) and by appropriations made by

the Oregon State legislature. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the

views of any of those organizations.

Oregon Sea Grant • http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu • 541-737-2716

Introduction

Jim Waldvogel

Del Norte County Extension, University of California, Davis

Guillermo R. Giannico and Frank Burris

Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon Sea Grant & Extension Service

Oregon State University

Peter C. Klingeman

Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Department


Gravel extraction is an important economic activity for the coastal economies of

Oregon and northern California communities. Coastal development and highway

infrastructure are dependent on high-quality gravel, and rapidly increasing transportation

costs make long-distance movement of gravel cost-prohibitive. Therefore, local gravel

sources are often utilized to support growth and development in these coastal regions.

Over 90% of the gravel extracted is used for making concrete for the construction

industry, asphalt for highway construction, drain-rock for sewer and water systems and

for road fill. Gravel can be extracted for other reasons than to provide a marketable

commodity, including maintenance of channel depth for navigation, irrigation diversion,

flood control, and channel stability.

Coastal rivers provide high-quality gravel because the softer and more highly

fractured rocks do not survive the erosive forces of water and the constant abrasion as

they tumble from the headwaters to the ocean. However, gravel extraction in many

coastal rivers has been reduced or curtailed because of its effects on both anadromous and

resident fishes and their habitats. Such effects can include loss of spawning gravel,

reduction in juvenile fish rearing habitats, channel instability, siltation or other water

quality issues, and loss of riparian habitats. Impacts of gravel extraction on fish can have

both short-term (direct mortality or displacement from habitats during the extraction

phase) or long-term cumulative effects on fish and their habitats. As one might expect,

conflicts between gravel extraction interests and the protection of fisheries resources

escalate when rivers are inhabited by fish species listed under the Endangered Species

Act. As a result, the possibility of generating fish habitat enhancement opportunities

while mining gravel through creative extraction planning and permitting flexibility has

started to receive increasing attention.

The Oregon State University Extension Sea Grant Program, with the financial

assistance of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, the Oregon Watershed

Enhancement Board, and the Oregon Department of State Lands, brought together during

a regional symposium almost 100 people involved or interested in gravel extraction from

in-stream sources and in understanding and minimizing the environmental impacts

resulting from such activity. The symposium was titled: In-Stream Gravel Extraction and

its Effects on Fish Habitats and was held on April 12–13, 2006, in Charleston, Oregon, at

the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve Visitor’s Center.

Ninety-six attendees from California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia

representing 11 watershed councils, 12 state or federal agencies, 6 gravel industries, 7

gravel consulting firms, and several environmental organizations and fishing industries

listened to formal presentations and participated in panel discussions during the two-day

event. Faculty from Oregon State University, University of California (Berkeley and

Davis), and the University of British Columbia were invited to give talks on river

processes, gravel recruitment and sources, gravel extraction, and impacts on river

channels. Researchers from NOAA-Fisheries and biologists from private consulting firms

reviewed some of the main effects of this extraction activity on fish and their habitats.

The meeting’s main focus was on in-stream gravel used for construction-grade

aggregate (e.g., for concrete) and as fill material (e.g., for pavement and building base fill).

Beyond in-stream gravel sources, other gravel sources were also discussed, such as

floodplain gravel pits and rock quarries. The symposium offered a detailed examination of

many physical and ecological aspects of gravel extraction. It also reviewed mining industry

extraction methods and explored broader opportunities for use of gravel extraction as a tool

for habitat enhancement.

Day 1 was devoted to physical considerations of in-stream gravel extraction. These

included a series of presentations and a panel discussion covering

River processes—how rivers provide gravel and how to calculate gravel budgets

Sources of gravel extraction—in-stream, floodplain, river terrace and quarries

Assessment and monitoring of gravel accumulation and extraction—

monitoring techniques and study designs to assess changes/trends

Industry position, needs, and harvesting techniques, Part 1

Industry information included a mixture of engineering and biological

considerations. The closing panel discussion by all presenters involved responses to

prepared questions from the organizers and replies to questions and comments from the

audience.

Day 2 topics brought in the ecological considerations of in-stream gravel extraction.

The sequence of presentations and the panel discussion covered

Site-specific harvest methods to minimize impacts to salmonids—cumulative

effects, changes to morphology, water quality, vegetation impacts, and

recovery perspectives

Industry position, needs, and harvesting techniques, Part 2

Using in-stream gravel extraction methods to restore or enhance habitat—

alcoves, oxbows, terrace skim,s and volume vs. cost benefits

Gravel mining and salmonid habitat—fish habitat requirements, accepted

extraction protocols, and impact to salmon habitat of different harvesting

techniques

All of these presentations addressed impact reduction approaches for gravel

extraction. Industry information presented on day 2 included geological aspects of gravel

availability, particularly regarding the Oregon coast, and the economics of harvest

techniques.

The symposium occurred over the short period of less than two days. The material

presented was comprehensive and detailed, even though the time was limited for exploring

many aspects of gravel harvesting and ecosystem impacts. Overall, the symposium provided

a useful overview of in-stream gravel mining considerations. Symposium organizers and

attendees both expressed interest in continuing with the dialogue that was initiated during

this regional meeting. A proposed next step to this regional symposium would be the

organization of a task force that would identify and prioritize issues/questions that could be

researched/answered through a collaborative, adaptive-management effort involving the

gravel mining industry, government regulatory agencies, local community organizations,

and research institutions.

The papers included in this CD-ROM were prepared by the symposium speakers

to summarize the content and main points that were made during their oral presentations.

Two of the talks listed in the symposium program are not included in these proceedings,

however. They are those by Mr. Rich Angstrom (Oregon Concrete and Aggregate

Producers Association), who did not submit a paper, and by Professor Mathias Kondolf

(Department of Landscape Architecture/Environmental Planning, University of

California, Berkeley), who could not attend the meeting due to unexpected flight

cancellations. Short, edited versions of the panel discussions held at the end of each day

are also included in this CD-ROM.

Technical Background to Symposium’s Theme

Peter C. Klingeman

Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Department


A. Technical Background

A short discussion follows that is intended to help scope out the symposium theme based on

some general topics that address the physical side of the symposium program covered during the

first day of presentations. The intention here is to connect the topics and suggest some main ideas

for the audience to recognize as the following presentations are made. This technical background

section consists of five parts:

Rivers as sources and storage units for sediment

Competing river uses and management goals

Brief background on river gravel mining

Questions posed by river gravel extraction

Closing comments

1. Rivers as Sources and Storage Units for Sediment

Alluvial rivers

Alluvial rivers are those rivers having beds and banks composed of inorganic matter of rock

origin that has been transported by past river flows. As used here, sediment consists of rock and

mineral particles deposited by water. Sediment includes a wide range of sizes. Alluvial rivers

transport and store this sediment.

Sediment particles and their sizes

Sediment particles are primarily distinguished on the basis of size. For river engineering

purposes, the following classification is used:

Boulders > 256 mm (> 10 inches)

Cobbles 64 — 256 mm (2.5 to 10 inches)

Gravel 2 — 64 mm

Sand 0.064 — 2 mm

Silt 0.002 — 0.064 mm

Clay <0.002 mm

The word “fines” is often used to mean particles smaller than some reference size. For

example, if the emphasis is on gravel and cobbles, then fines may include sand and smaller

particles, but if the emphasis is on gravel and sand, then fines will include silt and clay.

Sediment transport related to river flow

Sediment transport occurs by specific modes that depend on the flow strength, the source of

material, and the transport mechanism. Flow strength depends on the total discharge and the locally

concentrated velocities and shear stresses. Total discharge varies considerably over time. Rivers in

the Pacific Northwest have distinctive wet and dry seasons, with streamflows driven by seasonal

precipitation and snowmelt. There may be no sediment transport during seasons of low river flow

and only intermittent sediment transport during wet seasons, as river discharges fluctuate in amount

and in their corresponding transport ability from day to day.

Transport as bed load or suspension

The simplest sediment transport distinction is that between bed load and suspended load.

Bed load material rolls, drags, bounces, slides, and bumps its way along the channel bed. It has

nearly continual contact with the bed and is supported by the bed as it moves. The transport

mechanism is the “drag” or shear stress exerted on particles by the surrounding flowing water.

Suspended load material is carried in the water above the bed, between the bed surface and the

water surface. The transport mechanism is the “turbulence” of the moving water. This turbulence

keeps particles “stirred up” even though they have a tendency to settle out of the flow because their

weight exceeds the buoyant force of the water. The smallest particles are rather uniformly mixed

throughout the water “column,” whereas the larger particles tend to be more concentrated near the

bed. It should be apparent that large particles move as bed load and small particles move as

suspended load. Some sizes of particles (e.g., sand) move in either manner, depending on the

particular river discharge and flow strength at the moment.

Sediment storage

Sediment storage occurs throughout a river channel. The river bed of an alluvial river

consists of sediment. The banks of an alluvial river also consist of sediment. Bars and islands are

also likely to consist of sediment. Bed and bank material may be non-cohesive (e.g., sand and

larger) or cohesive (abundant clay that binds the particles). In comparison to a fully alluvial river, a

river such as the lower-middle Alsea River may have extensive bedrock outcrops along the bed and

banks, with limited pockets of sediment.

2. Competing River Uses and Management Goals

Rivers are multiple-use resources

Rivers have been viewed historically as multiple-use resources. They provide a conveyance

route; a means for generating hydroelectric power; a source of municipal, industrial, and agricultural

water; a source for sand and gravel; a recreational playground; and a complex ecosystem serving a

large network of plant and animal species.

River management is complex, with conflicts

Because of such multiple-purpose use, river management is complex and often laden with

conflicts. At the time of the writing of the U.S. Constitution, rivers were viewed as arteries of

commerce. This led to the need for ports and navigation and gave significant roles to the U.S. Army

Corps of Engineers. A different and vague role of rivers may also be inferred from the Constitution,

with respect to promoting the common good and public welfare. By the 1970s, acts such as the

National Environmental Policy Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and the Endangered Species

Act imposed much more restrictive management on rivers.

River gravel as a natural resource with some supply and replacement

River gravel is a natural resource. To some extent it is a renewable resource, but

“renewability” tends to be a site-specific consideration. Gravel is subject to significant conflicting

concerns with respect to river management goals and stream uses. These include: habitat uses,

gravel extraction, bank erosion control, and flood control.

River gravel has a high demand for construction-grade aggregate

River gravel that occurs in the lower reaches of rivers near roads and communities has a

high demand for use as aggregate to make concrete. Such gravel has already survived the abrasion

and breakdown of sizes associated with river transport, and hence tends to have more durable

properties than quarry rock or hillside material derived from bedrock weathering. River gravel may

also be closer to potential market areas than some floodplain gravels. In some locations, it may not

be affected by competing, expensive floodplain land uses. Also, state royalties for mining of river

gravel may be much smaller than the alternative floodplain land-acquisition costs. Hence, river

gravel is favored for its strength, its proximity to potential markets, and its apparent fewer cost

barriers. Counterbalancing these benefits are significant restrictions on removal of gravel from

stream channels.

River gravel is an irreplaceable element of many ecosystems – there is no substitute

River gravel is an essential physical element for most stream ecosystems, particularly for the

alluvial rivers of the Pacific Northwest. Gravel is part of the natural physical boundary of a river.

Gravel also forms a streambed substrate layer where benthic organisms live. It is used by many

organisms and species for portions of their life cycles. In particular, the several salmonid species

that are found in the Pacific Northwest use gravel for spawning, egg incubation, and fry habitat.

Gravel also provides the in-stream and bar growing medium for various rooted aquatic plants.

Gravel forms the base layer of many river banks. Collectively, there is no substitute to take the place

of river gravel for these ecosystem services.

3. Brief Background on River Gravel Mining

Several methods for gravel mining

There are several basic methods for gravel mining. There are also many variations of ways

to apply these methods.

One basic categorization of methods is the following:

In-channel dredging (this typically involves a clamshell, barge, and dock):

o for navigation improvement by increasing the available water depth to exceed

some vessel design draft

o for bank erosion control by shifting currents away from eroding banks

o for bank erosion control by shifting dredge spoils from channel zones to the

bases of eroding banks

o for channel flow realignment (e.g., to develop a dominant route around an

island)

o for channel realignment by excavating a new channel

o for aggregate extraction

Bar skimming/scalping (this typically involves a blade, loader, truck, and haul road).

o This is usually done with a low, wide “leave” strip between the river and

scalping zone and with a downstream escape route for fish.

Point bar excavation (there are several options for equipment used)

o This is usually done with a large, higher leave strip or residual part of the bar

between the river and excavation zone.

Floodplain pit excavation (this involves a variety of excavation equipment and trucks)

o For meandering rivers, this is likely to involve old river channels.

o Shallow pits—work done in wet or dry pit (e.g., less than 10 feet deep).

o Intermediate-depth dewatered pits (e.g., 10 to 40 feet deep).

o Deep dewatered pits (e.g., deeper than 40 feet).

Rock quarries (this involves blasting and removal equipment)

o Requires blasting, possible further size reduction, and size sorting.

Preferred sizes of material

Among the sizes of sediment present in a river, sand and gravel are of particular interest to

industries seeking sources of construction aggregate. Such aggregate is used to make concrete,

provide surfaces for paths and roads, give foundation support for walls and floors, etc. Concrete is

produced by combining sand and gravel (collectively called aggregate) with cement and water in

specific proportions. Preferred gravel particle characteristics include high intrinsic strength and

rounded corners. River gravel provides these features. Sediment transport involves the tumbling and

rubbing and collisions of particles, which produces particles with rounded corners in durable

surviving sizes.

Preferred sources of material

There is a prevailing view that river gravel makes better concrete than does quarry rock.

River gravel and floodplain gravel are likely to be similar in those properties needed for high-

quality concrete. However, floodplain gravel is not as clean (lacking recent river washing) and the

void spaces are likely to contain relatively more fines due to the depositional environment of a

developing floodplain. Furthermore, floodplain gravel may have been subjected to considerable

compaction by the overburden material after its original deposition. Floodplain pits may offer more

accessible gravel per unit surface area than river channels, due to the significant depths of some

floodplain deposits and the difficulties that may be posed by in-stream extraction to any great depth.

4. Questions Posed by River Gravel Extraction

Physical processes

A highly specific set of questions is posed by in-stream gravel extraction that is related to

the associated physical processes and the replacement of river gravel that has been removed from a

particular location in a river system.

1. Is river gravel a renewable resource?

a. If renewable, under what circumstances will replacement occur (e.g., routine

events? floods? meandering and avulsions? other system disturbances?)?

b. At what rate will replacement occur?

c. From what sources will replacement occur?

d. Will such replacement impair the source locations?

e. Thus, how sustainable is the river gravel supply?

f. Can an annual or long-term sustainable yield be estimated?

2. Is river gravel a non-renewable resource?

a. If not renewable, what are the consequences of net loss of gravel from the river?

b. What will be the geomorphic and hydraulic and water quality changes that

result?

3. Is river gravel a partially renewable resource?

a. Is there such a parameter as a sustainable yield in this case?

b. Can the consequences (e.g., system shifts) caused by varying degrees of gravel

extraction be estimated?

Impacts on ecological processes

A broader set of questions is posed by in-stream gravel extraction that is related to the

impacts on ecological processes, habitat conditions, and ecosystem integrity (i.e., “health”).

1. What are the ecosystem impacts and issues that must be addressed during gravel

extraction?

a. What will be the water quality impacts?

b. What risk is there of fish/organism trapping or stranding?

c. What morphological changes will occur in the channel?

d. What changes will be made to stream banks and riparian zones?

e. What habitat alterations will occur?

2. What are the residual post-extraction ecosystem impacts and issues that must also be

addressed in considering in-stream gravel extraction?

a. What will happen to the diversity and complexity of the ecosystem?

b. What changes will occur in longitudinal, lateral and vertical connectivity of the

system?

c. How will water depths and channel widths be altered?

d. How will pools and riffles be altered?

e. How will meandering, bar formation, and bank erosion be altered?

Illustration of severe changes imposed on a river system

The Newberg Pool and the adjacent upstream channel in the Willamette River provide an

example of severe long-term changes that may be imposed on a river by in-channel gravel mining.

Changes occurred in an era before environmental concerns were routinely considered. Several

decades ago, in-stream gravel extraction occurred upstream of Willamette Falls. From the dredged

reaches, gravel could be barged through Willamette Locks to the Portland metropolitan area for

commercial uses. A deep pool resulted from dredging to the former shallower channel to a depth of

about 35 feet. This extended several miles upstream of the falls, past Newberg. Subsequently,

dredging continued upstream past Willow Island and the mouth of the Yamhill River. Gravel

replacement to this dredged reach of river is nil. Near Candiani Bar, farther upstream, a shoal-and-

shallow-pool environment still existed in 1980, and further upstream an extensive riffle occurred.

The Newberg Pool in 1980 was a long reach of sluggish water with about six inches of organic-

inorganic “fluff” over the remaining gravel substrate. Water clarity in the reach was diminished.

Upriver, near and beyond Candiani Bar, the velocities were larger, flow was shallower, the water

was clearer, and the substrate was clean gravel. However, gravel replacement to this undredged

reach of river is also nearly zero, other than small contributions from local bank erosion and bar

shifting. This limitation on gravel replacement is a feature of the longer upstream reaches of the

Willamette. Hence, the consequences of in-stream gravel extraction in the Newberg Pool reach were

to provide much-needed aggregate for a growing urban population but to permanently alter the

riverine ecosystem.

5. Closing Comments

There are important considerations for in-stream gravel extraction. These require an

understanding of the sediment transport regime of the river, the morphological features of the

channel and their sensitivity to change, the extraction options, the prevailing ecosystem and

associated habitats, and the ecological impacts.

Most in-stream gravel extraction sites do NOT have easy environmental solutions.

Therefore, confrontations are likely to occur and compromises may be needed. Resolution of issues,

in whatever manner, is likely to be costly for some or all of the interests involved, whether they be

industrial-commercial, environmental, or governmental entities. The costs may be measured in

terms of dollars, environmental “health,” or both.

Many ecosystems are presently in a damaged or altered condition. Because of this, there

may be opportunities to use gravel management and gravel extraction as a mechanism for restoring

some habitat features. Such opportunities merit identification and exploration.

B. Brief Summary of Related Research

The issues of gravel mining and aquatic habitat in the western United States have been

widely researched from several perspectives. For example, many investigations have focused

primarily on aquatic habitat, others on the impacts of gravel mining, and others on gravel

renewability (e.g., Washington Water Research Center 1981, Klingeman 1981, Klingeman and

MacArthur 1990).

A different line of investigation has addressed the use and the biological or economic

importance of habitat in the context of habitat attributes such as the availability of sufficient

water. For example, in Adams, Klingeman, and Li 1990 and Adams et al. 1993, the emphasis

was placed on evaluating various management alternatives and the methodology has potential

application to gravel mining alternatives.

A particularly pertinent major summary was assembled to specifically address the gravel-

disturbance and removal impacts on salmon habitat and stream health (Williamson, et al. 1995A,

1995B). This Oregon State University team effort and report to Oregon Division of State Lands

addressed a charge from the Oregon State Legislature (Senate Bill 81) to:

1. Examine the relationship between the removal of material from streams and stream

health in support of “essential indigenous anadromous salmonid habitat.”

2. Enhance Oregon Department of State Lands’ knowledge of stream processes and

impacts on salmon habitat for application to the review of permit requests to remove

gravel bars.

3. Examine potential benefits and problems of gravel removal in streams.

4. Answer questions about gravel removal impacts on salmon habitat—such as pool

depths, sedimentation at spawning beds, stabilization of riverine habitat, removal rate

vis-a-vis recruitment rate, and channel and bank stability.

Other categories of related research include past work done on sediment production and

delivery processes, sediment transport mechanisms, sediment transport processes that affect

aquatic habitat, and impact analysis related to hydrology, hydraulics, and geomorphology. A

sampling of relevant related research is as follows:

Sediment production in Pacific Northwest watersheds and yield to stream reaches has

been described in terms of geology, topography, and land use patterns (e.g., Swanson et

al. 1987).

Landslides are common mechanisms for the production of sediment from watersheds in

the Coastal Range and other steep-terrain zones in the Pacific Northwest (e.g., Ice 1985,

Megahan and King 1985, Swanston 1978).

Estimates have been made of annual sediment yields for Oregon Coastal Range

watersheds (Beach and Rickert 1976).

The spatial and temporal variability of sediment supply is related to basin scale and this

affects the complexity of sediment transport processes (e.g., Campbell 1992).

Basic and applied research has been completed on gravel transport in mountain streams

and has been applied to a few selected streams in Oregon (e.g., Bakke, et al. 1999, Parker

and Klingeman 1982, Parker, Klingeman, and McLean 1982).

Methodologies have been recommended for evaluation of physical aspects and habitat

impacts for field sites in Oregon where gravel removal is being considered.

Long-term impacts of gravel removal have been examined (Klingeman 1973).

Cited References

Adams, R. M., P. C. Klingeman, and H. W. Li. 1990. A Bioeconomic Analysis of Water

Allocations and Fish Habitat Enhancements, John Day Basin, Oregon. Oregon State

University, Corvallis, OR. 168 pp.

Adams et al. (R. M. Adams, R. P. Berrens, A. Cerda, H. W. Li, and P. C. Klingeman). 1993.

“Developing a Bioeconomic Model for Riverine Management: Case of the John Day

River, Oregon.” Rivers, V4 N3 pp. 2133–226 July 1993.

Bakke, P. D. et al. (P. O. Basdekas, D. R. Dawdy, P. C. Klingeman). 1999. “Calibrated Parker-

Klingeman Model for Gravel Transport.” Jour. Hydraulic Engrg., ASCE. V. 125, N.6.

Beach, R. and E. Rickert. 1976. Erosion Potential - Sediment Yield Map. Oregon Dept. of

Environmental Quality. Salem, OR.

Campbell, I. A. 1992. “Spatial and temporal variation of erosion and sediment yield.” Intl. Assoc.

of Hydrologic Sciences. 210:455–465.

Ice, G. 1985. Catalog of landslide inventories for the Northwest papers presented at the AGU

meeting on cumulative effects. National Council for Air and Stream Improvement of the

Paper Industry. Tech Bull. 456. Corvallis, OR.

Klingeman, Peter C. 1973. Indications of Streambed Degradation in the Willamette Valley. Water

Resources Research Institute, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR. Report WRRUI-

21. 99 pp.

Klingeman, Peter C. 1981. “Short-Term Considerations on River Gravel Supply” in Salmon

Spawning Gravel: A Renewable Resource in the Pacific Northwest? Conference

Proceedings. Washington State University, Pullman, WA. pp 123–139.

Klingeman, Peter C. and Robert C. MacArthur. 1990. “Sediment Transport and Aquatic Habitat

in Gravel-Bed Rivers.” Hydraulic Engineering, Volume 2 (Chang and Hill, editors). 1990

National Conference, American Society of Civil Engineers. San Diego, CA. pp 1116–

1121.

Megahan, W. F. and P. N. King. 1985. Identification of critical areas on forest lands for control

of nonpoint sources of pollution. Environmental Management. 9(1):7–18.

Parker, G. and P. C. Klingeman. 1982. “On Why Gravel Bed Streams are Paved.” Water

Resources Research. V.18 N.5: pp 1409–1423.

Parker, G., P. C. Klingeman, and D. G. McLean. 1982. “Bedload and Size Distribution in Paved

Gravel-Bed Streams” Jour. of the Hydr. Div., ASCE. V.108. N.HY4. pp 544–571.

Swanson, Fred J. et al. 1987. “Mass failures and other sediment production in Pacific Northwest

landscapes.” in E. O. Salo and T. W. Cundy (eds). Streamside Management: Forestry

and Fisheries Interactions: Proceedings of a Symposium. University of Washington

Institute of Forest Resources, Contribution No. 57. pp 9–38.

Swanston, D. N. 1978. Effect of geology on soil mass movement activity in the Pacific

Northwest. in Forest Soil and Land Use: Proceedings of the Fifth American Forest Soils

Conference. Colorado State University, Dept. of Wood Sciences. Ft. Collins, CO. pp 89–

115.

Washington Water Research Center. 1981. Salmon Spawning Gravel: A Renewable Resource in

the Pacific Northwest?. Conference Proceedings. Washington State University, Pullman,

WA. 285 pp.

Williamson, K. J. et al. (Bella, Beschta, Grant, Klingeman, Li, Nelson). 1995A. Gravel

Disturbance Impacts on Salmon Habitat and Stream Health. Volume 1: Summary Report.

Oregon Water Resources Research Institute, OSU. Corvallis, OR. 52 pp.

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Disturbance Impacts on Salmon Habitat and Stream Health. Volume 1: Technical

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227 pp.

River Processes: How Do Rivers Provide Gravel?

Michael Church

Department of Geography

The University of British Columbia

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z2

[email protected]

How Do Rivers Work?

Rivers are conduits for evacuating water from the surface of the land. Their form

and stability are determined by the water and sediment introduced into them from the

land surface. Therefore, land surface conditions in the drainage basin ultimately

determine what gravel is delivered to stream channels. The “land surface” includes the

riparian zone and the river banks themselves, which are often important sources of the

sediments that arrive in the river.

More formally stated, rivers are subject to four major governing factors:

i) The volume and temporal distribution of water delivered to the channel

ii) The volume and caliber of the sediment delivered to the channel

iii) The character of sediments on the bed and banks of the channel, and of bank

vegetation

iv) The topographic gradient down which the river flows.

The most important condition from the perspective of what particular morphology

is developed is the second one—rivers adopt distinctive forms and stability according to

the sediments that make up the bed and bank and, in most rivers, those sediments derive

from the sediments delivered to the channel.

Gravel-bed rivers are, then, distinct from ones flowing in other sediments. They

often exhibit modest, irregular sinuosity or braiding. Channels that combine irregular

sinuosity with low order braiding, with some channel islands often present as well—in

short, channels that combine all of the features that classically distinguish basic channel

types—have been called “wandering channels,” and they appear to be a distinctive

gravel-bed type that is common in mountain valleys with a moderate supply of bed

material sediments.

The governing conditions can be quantified and incorporated into regime

equations that describe river channel response to those conditions. We will not pursue

that course here, but instead turn our attention toward some other aspects of the river

system.

River basins can be divided into three zones: an upland “source zone” that

supplies most of the water and sediment to the system; a “transport zone” along the

principal valleys, along which the river conveys water and sediment, and an end-point

“deposition zone” where sediments are finally deposited (Schumm 1977). The source

zone occupies most of the drainage basin and contains about 80% of the total length of

the drainage system. Channels are small, they are steep if the drainage basin contains

significant relief, and they often flow on rock or on coarse materials. They receive

sediments directly from “overbank” by a variety of mass wasting processes, but they do

not store significant volumes of sediment. Sediment is delivered downstream to valley

channels of the transport zone where, on lower gradients, significant stores of sediment

develop in channel bars and in floodplains. End-point deposition occurs in alluvial fans,

in distal floodplains of large rivers, and in deltas.

Where Does Gravel Come From?

Gravel originates in the upland drainage basin. It is derived from semi-point

sources of mass wasting material on hillsides, such as rock falls and rock avalanches,

debris slides, debris flows, slumps, and other mass failures. It can also originate from

linear sources along river banks at the base of hillslopes, from where it is directly

entrained into the river. The ultimate source may be weathering bedrock or unlithified

surficial material originally generated by other processes including, prominently,

glaciation. Gravel is common in glaciated landscapes but may be comparatively scarce in

unglaciated ones.

The quality of the gravel depends in large measure on the quality of the source

materials, but it may also depend in some degree on climate since the weathering

properties of particular rock types vary with climate. In temperate climates, granitic rocks

produce strong, weather-resistant gravels, particularly after they have been water-run. At

the other extreme, shales and mudstones disintegrate quickly and tend not to produce

gravel at all. The shape of gravel also depends on rock properties, including bedding and

jointing, which determine the initial shapes of weathered stones.

How Is Gravel Concentrated in the River System?

Headwater streams in steep terrain receive a wide range of grain sizes from

adjacent slopes by various mass wasting processes. In regions of low relief, mass wasting

processes are going to be restricted to soil creep and slump processes in soil materials,

and there may be little or no delivery of gravel to headwaters at all. Such stream systems

recruit gravel only if the streams themselves flow over gravels deposited at some time in

the past.

Once in stream channels, material is moved downstream by high flows. But a

flow of a given size is competent to transport material only up to some limit size, beyond

which material becomes too heavy to be moved by the fluid forces. So fluvial sediment

transport is a sorting process. The largest material that a streamflow can transport

generally falls in the range:

20dS < D < 60dS;

where D is grain diameter, d is the depth of the flowing water, and S is the stream water

surface gradient.1 Moving downstream, S declines much more quickly than d increases (d

may typically vary through a range of about 10x through a stream system, whereas S may

vary by several powers of 10), so that grain sizes become steadily finer as material

progresses down the stream system, even though the larger river can transport much more

of that finer material. The outcome is that grain size distributions become steadily more

narrowly graded downstream. Not far from the headwaters, a secondary mode in sand

sizes arises. Grain size distributions in gravel-bed channels are often bimodal mixtures of

1 For the aficionados, this is simply Shields’ formula with limit Shields’ numbers 0.03 and 0.01, selected to

recognize the fact that we are here considering the largest grains remaining in transport.

sand and gravel, but eventually the sand becomes dominant and, sufficiently far

downstream, gravel disappears from the channel.

What becomes of the gravel that is left behind? Are stream channels slowly

becoming choked with material that they cannot evacuate? No. The material weathers in

place (the wetting-drying/freezing-thawing environment of stream deposits is a

particularly effective weathering environment) and resumes its journey downstream when

it has broken into smaller pieces.

In small, steep channels, clasts tend to move as individuals. If they begin to move

collectively, they are apt to ignite a mass flow called a debris flow. In larger channels

moving larger volumes of material, sheet transport of gravels occurs over the bed. The

sheets run onto bar edges, where they are deposited. This process produces well-sorted,

planar beds of varying caliber, according to the varying strength of the flows that

produced them.

The surface of gravel deposits is washed by smaller flows so that fine material is

removed from the surface. The surface of fluvial gravel deposits characteristically is a

relatively coarse layer one grain deep. Underneath, the materials are on average finer and

more sandy (a fact that has fooled more than one intending gravel miner!). The surface

layer protects the underlying material from ready re-entrainment, so it contributes

significantly to increasing the stability of the channel bed. It contributes further by the

characteristically imbricate pattern of the stones, whereby they overlap onto each other

(much like roof shingles—in fact, the process has been called “shingling”). This means

that, to move one stone, one has to shift the weight of other stones that are leaning on it.

This, and more elaborate structures, greatly increases the stability of fluvial gravel

surfaces; they can reduce local entrainment of sediment into the flow by more than 10x.

An Important Class of Rivers

Rivers that flow through their own deposits are said to be “alluvial” rivers; the

channel is self-formed by the river and may be further reformed by future flows that

move the sediment again. Non-alluvial channels, in contrast, are ones that are bounded by

rock or by non-alluvial soil materials. These are textbook definitions; the actual situation

is a bit more complex. Many channels have an alluvial bed, but one or both banks are

formed of non-alluvial material at the base of the hillside. Such channels are only

partially alluvial.

Even more significantly, the readiness with which an “alluvial” bed may be

moved varies greatly. “Threshold channels” are ones floored by coarse materials

(boulders, cobbles, gravel) that move only infrequently and at low rates. The sediment

transport in such channels is, in some sense, “supply-limited.” “Labile channels”2 are

ones floored by finer sediments (gravels, sands) that move frequently and possibly at high

rates. Sediment transport is definitely “transport limited”—that is, limited by the capacity

of the flow to move material. The occurrence of these channel types is more or less zoned

in the landscape according to the size of materials found in stream channels. Threshold

channels are upland types, often only partially alluvial, receiving sediment from overbank

and having only a thin alluvial veneer. Labile channels are fully alluvial types found

2 The terms “threshold” and “labile” are my own. They do not appear in the textbooks, which have not yet

tumbled to this distinction.

along the main valleys, receiving sediment supplies by fluvial transport from upstream

and having an alluvial cover at least as deep as the channel, and sometimes much deeper.

This discussion leads to the summary classification of stream channel types given

in Table 1. Amongst these channel types, workable gravel deposits are apt to be found in

labile, partly or fully alluvial channels, found along the main valleys of river systems, but

still relatively close to upland sources.

The Gravel Budget: How Much Gravel Do We Have?

We have a lot less gravel available than one might think. Many gravel-bed rivers

exhibit broad expanses of bars, which are exposed at most flows. The gravel supply

appears to be abundant. But this is the accumulation of thousands of years (or tens or

even hundreds of thousands of years in non-glaciated regions): it does not reflect the

current supply.

Along a 60 km stretch of lower Fraser River, in British Columbia, there are at

least 2.5 billion tonnes of gravel stored. Each year, about 2.5 million tonnes is moved by

the river within the reach, but the supply into the reach at its head is only 0.25 million

tonnes. The deposit is the product of a 10,000-year history of accumulation.

It is often supposed that river gravel represents a renewable resource, but it is

renewable only to the extent of the current recruitment (rate of supply from upstream). To

take significantly greater volumes represents exploitation of the resource as a non-

renewable one, and it has repercussions on other resource values (of which more below).

In nearly all cases of gravel mining from river channels, however, the supply rate is not

known; it is simply supposed that it must be large because the deposit appears to be large.

Table 1

Summary classification of stream channel types

Threshold Labile

Boundaries (large material) (finer material)

Non-alluvial rock-bound or easily eroded

refractory sediments sediments

Partly alluvial cobble/gravel bedrock agravel/sand bedrock

or Quaternary sediment or Quaternary sediment

banks banks

Fully alluvial cobble/gravel bed and agravel/sand bed,

banks sand/silt banks

supply-limited transport-limited

upland type valley type

a Entries in bold are of principal interest for gravel mining.

The Gravel Budget: How Do We Find It Out?

The usual means to determine sediment transport in a river is to take samples of

the sediment in transport. For sediments suspended in the water column, that is relatively

easy: one simply requires a sample of the water from which to filter the sediment. For

gravel moving over the bed, however, sampling is difficult. The usual means entails

placing a flow-through trap on the streambed, but such traps are notoriously inconsistent

in their performance and the measurement is by no means routine. The result usually is a

scattered series of measurements from which it is difficult to extract a precise relation

between flow and sediment transport, a necessary result in order to calculate the total

transport.

The most reliable means to determine the gravel budget of a stream reach is to

conduct repeated surveys of the river bed. This yields a summary measure of the net

change in the volume of sediment over the time between surveys, which usually is of

more interest than the short-term transport in any case. But the procedure is not without

its own difficulties (see Ashmore and Church 1998) and, in a large river, it is an

expensive undertaking because the survey must be detailed in order for the sediment

budget to be accurate. Furthermore, one obtains only a measure of the net change in

material present in the reach. To obtain an absolute measure of sediment throughput, one

still requires a reference value of transport at one point in the reach. But for resource

management purposes, the difference—that is, the net supply to the reach—is usually the

critical figure required.

What Is the Ecological Role of River Gravel?

Gravel supports far more diverse aquatic ecosystems than does sand. In headwater

channels, the streambed supports a diverse community of benthic (bottom-dwelling)

insects and the channels recruit large volumes of drop-in carbonaceous material in the

form of leaves and wood that enters the food chain downstream. Headwater channels

provide superior habitat for various amphibians (e.g., frogs, salamanders) as well. Much

of the insect life actually occurs under the streambed in the spaces between individual

boulders, pebbles, and gravel. The porosity and structural complexity of the gravel

deposits promotes the diversity of life by offering a large range of microhabitats.

Downstream, gravel deposits in the form of riffle-pool units and a wide array of specific

morphologies around the bars in large rivers provide a comparable range of aquatic

habitats for both aquatic insects and fishes. The provision of habitat for rearing of

juvenile fishes is particularly important because, without successful rearing, a river

cannot be productive. These fish usually require semi-protected water with hiding places,

so that they are not excessively exposed to either high currents or to predators. Bar edge

habitats provide a range of such sites.

It is well known that river gravel also plays a critical role in the reproduction of

gravel-adapted species. The sorting process for river gravel that goes on in rivers is

important because it localizes the occurrence of gravels of appropriate size for different

species. Hence, most species conduct spawning at a restricted number of sites along a

river, disturbance of which may negatively affect the species in a significant manner.

More generally, the normal processes of gravel transport and deposition along the

channel are ecologically important because they continually renew habitat by turning

over gravels and by creating new habitat spaces. Bed material transport creates at least a

modest level of instability in any gravel bed, a level to which river organisms can adapt

successfully. Interference with the transport process can, then, threaten aquatic

ecosystems, even in river reaches where there is no direct human interference. Finally,

because of the diversity and productivity of gravel-river ecosystems, they become a focus

for recreational activity and for both commercial and subsistence exploitation by people.

The main focus of attention is the fishery, but the fishery is, of course, a dependent part

of the complete ecosystem.

What Happens when we Remove Gravel from a River Channel?

Gravel is often scalped from bar tops during low water. It is an advantage that the

operations take place entirely on the dry surface, because water quality in the river is not

affected. The result is the production of a low, featureless surface that provides

significantly reduced microhabitat variability. More importantly, it eliminates the high

bar surfaces that act as escape habitat for organisms seeking to avoid the strong river

currents of high flood.

Removal of gravel from bar tops (or from the deeper channel bed) also destroys

the imbricate structure of the surface gravel layer so that, immediately afterward,

sediment entrainment and channel instability are substantially increased. The

consequences of this may or may not be important, depending on the area disturbed and

the downstream channel configuration.

Where large volumes of gravel are removed, the general level of the bed is

lowered (sometimes a deliberate strategy to mitigate perceived flood hazards). This may

expose the foundations of in-channel engineering structures such as bridge piers, water

intakes, and outfalls. Where excavations are deep, a shallow, fast-flowing riverine habitat

is replaced by a deep, slow-flowing one. This leads to a dramatic change in the aquatic

community, since quite different organisms are adapted to each of these conditions. An

ostensible solution to this problem is to mine off-channel, in the floodplain. However, if

the river maintains some degree of lateral instability, there remains the possibility for it to

break into such excavations and be captured by them. If the river is constrained to prevent

such a development, that may also compromise its full ecological function.

The excavation of substantial void spaces in the channel bed creates traps for

incoming bed material, so the downstream progression of gravel is interrupted. The

normal renewal of gravelly aquatic habitat downstream is accordingly interrupted. This

may set in train significant net erosion downstream as the river recovers a gravel load.

The usual result is a deeper, narrower, and substantially simplified channel. In extreme

cases, one is left with a featureless ditch and with possibly significant bank stability

problems.

The ecological services of rivers are increasingly valued in our society, so that the

confrontation of gravel mining with ecological conditions is viewed as a conflict between

two sets of resource values. In the past, the value of ecological services has often been

discounted, but their increasing significance creates complex river-management problems

today.

How Much Gravel Is Reasonable to Remove from a River Channel?

In most places where decisions have been made to remove gravel from river

channels on an industrially economical scale, removals have exceeded current

recruitment by a factor of 10x or more, with disastrous consequences both for

engineering and ecology. On a number of rivers, however, small removals have averaged

some fraction of recruitment rate—typically 0.5x—over decades, with no apparent major

effect. There has been very little experience of borrowing rates on the order of 1.0–3x the

recruitment rate (see Church et al. 2001 for a review), although repeated excavation

around certain bars in some northern California rivers suggests that there may be a viable

middle ground (see Halligan, this symposium). Nor has there been much opportunity to

scale removals so closely to the recruitment rate, because in very few cases is the gravel

recruitment rate even known—the consequence both of the difficulty of measuring it and

the perception that the gravel is abundant.

The mode of removal has a significant influence over the onset of significant

change. Neither bar-top scalping nor deep excavation mimic patterns of gravel deposition

and erosion in rivers, and they disrupt normal riverine processes more than needs be. A

system whereby gravel is pulled from the flank of bars or from back-bar chutes, just

reversing the process of deposition, would probably be more benign, though it would not

eliminate the fact of an artificially increased flow cross-section.

We badly need examples of fully measured and monitored gravel-mining

operations in order to improve our knowledge of the effects of mining at various scales in

comparison with gravel recruitment.

References

Ashmore, P. E. and M. Church. 1998. Sediment transport and river morphology: a

paradigm for study. In Klingeman, P. C., R. L. Beschta, P. D. Komar, and J. B.

Bradley, editors, Gravel-bed rivers in the environment. Highlands Ranch, CO, Water

Resources Publications: 115–140.

Church, M., D. Ham, and H. Weatherly. 2001. Gravel management in Lower Fraser

River. Report for the City of Chilliwack: 104 pp. Available at

www.geog.ubc.ca/fraserriver.

Schumm, S. A. 1977. The fluvial system. New York, John Wiley: 345 pp.

Annual Monitoring—Components and Importance

Robert MacArthur, Ph.D., P.E.

Andrey Shvidchenko, Ph.D.

Northwest Hydraulic Consultants Inc.

West Sacramento, California

Physical and biological monitoring serves many purposes. Each purpose may be tailored to

satisfy specific needs, address specific technical issues, and be intended for use or review by a

specific audience. Monitoring in various forms is as old as the human race. Early people observed

changes and trends in seasonal weather conditions related to water supply, and they observed

seasonal behavior of the herds related to their primary source of food. Monitoring is an essential

component of any planning study and provides essential baseline information for resources

management and project design. Academic research relies on well-planned monitoring. At the

research level, monitoring is often quite focused and can be somewhat esoteric. Research-level

monitoring is a common key component of the scientific method that is implemented to seek answers

to hypotheses in order to understand complex physical, biological, or chemical processes.

Monitoring is also commonly conducted to develop an understanding of baseline conditions,

to better design projects capable of functioning effectively in various environments. Following

project construction, monitoring is used to evaluate project performance and to validate and update

outcomes from planning and design activities. Monitoring is used by every industry to assess

changes and trends in markets, the economy, and demographics. Large-scale watershed management

and planning studies rely on large-scale monitoring programs to identify and understand system

dynamics and roles of key, underlying physical and/or biological processes. The building-materials

industry (which includes aggregate producers) monitors market needs, trends, and costs. State and

local agencies monitor their watershed and river systems in order to better manage and maintain

them. Aggregate producers are also required to monitor their extraction operations with respect to

performance, efficiency, safety, and compliance with a variety of local, state, and federal permit

requirements. Therefore, monitoring is an important activity in most industries and is used to plan

and manage activities in order to maximize benefits and minimize impacts and losses.

Monitoring is used to

• measure local or regional changes in various parameters or processes

• analyze trends

• determine the fate and transport of pollutants and/or sediment materials

• define critical areas – via reconnaissance monitoring

• assess compliance with various permit requirements or performance standards

• measure effectiveness of conservation practices

• evaluate program (project) effectiveness – identify and quantify changes, trends, possible

impacts

• assess and allocate waste loading to water courses

• support model development, calibration, validation

• conduct basic research

• define physical, biological, or chemical problems

Many outlines for developing a monitoring program are available in the literature and are

found in various resource agency guidelines. Monitoring aggregate extraction operations is needed at

both the planning and management levels and begins with a definition of the problem(s) [the

hypothesis] and ends with an evaluation of the effectiveness of the plan or project. The framework is

similar to a planning process and includes the following components.

• Define purpose

Define/understand questions or problems to address, scale of study, usage of results,

audience.

• Formulate plan

Select variables, metrics, sampling methods, location(s), timing and frequency, station

type (permanent, temporary). Access? Safety? Cost?

• Test and collect

Test proposed methods, modify procedures as necessary, monitor sites, collect replicates,

monitor controls. Monitoring may require field sampling and laboratory analyses, special

skills, specialize equipment, special permits.

• Analyze results

Analyze results, perform quality checking, compare results with baseline conditions,

display results.

• Report procedures and results

Document procedures and results, summarize assumptions and limitations. Consider how

information will be used, understand the audience. What is the technical experience of

the audience; what is the required reporting frequency and format?

• Manage data

Anticipate types of data that will be required, data characteristics, formats, file size,

complex spatial and temporal tracking needs. Anticipate how data are likely to be used

(manipulation, analyses), select the format and data management system that best fits

your needs. The importance and effort required to prepare an effective and efficient data

management system are commonly underestimated and are frequently developed or

changed after monitoring begins.

• Archive information

This is a very important, often overlooked task that is a subset of data management.

Periodic or short-term monitoring programs often underestimate the likely needs to

revisit and reuse data collected years earlier for a different purpose.

Once the purpose of the monitoring program for an aggregate extraction operation is

understood, there are other important things to consider before starting the monitoring. It is

important to determine the type of aggregate extraction operation and its purpose: in-channel, off-

channel, floodplain, hard-rock quarry extraction; is the proposed extraction for mining, to maintain

channel capacity, or other? It is important to know where the project is located in the watershed and

what type of physiographic province (hydro-geomorphic setting) it is located in. Is the project

located in the steep, narrow, high-energy regions of the watershed, or in a mild-gradient, lower-

energy, wide-valley setting? What are the underlying hydrogeomorphic characteristics of the project

area (annual flow conditions, channel slope, characteristics of channel bed and bank materials,

proximity of tributaries and significant hydraulic controls such as dams, bridges, levees, and

highway embankments?

Next, it is very important to develop a basic understanding of the land use history and

hydrology of the watershed. A river has several personalities and a long memory of past occurrences

and will often respond (adjust) for long periods of time to significant hydrologic events, basin

stability, construction of water diversion projects, significant land use changes, the occurrence of

fires, landslides, volcanic eruptions, large-scale urbanization, etc. Therefore, it is very important to

know about the watershed history while establishing baseline conditions that are intended to be used

for comparing changes and trends from the monitoring program. Physical baseline conditions need

to include hydrology (flows and river stages), sediment transport characteristics (material size,

sources of supply, transport rate, abundance), channel characteristics (channel pattern and slope;

planform characteristics—natural, confined, or channelized; bedform dynamics; bed and bank

stability). Biological baseline conditions may include characteristics and needs of special-status

species, aquatic habitat needs and characteristics, in-channel and floodplain vegetation type and

characteristics, seasonal water temperature regime, or water quality issues. Not all watersheds are

alike. However, some regulations may assume a one-size-fits-all approach (protocols) for

categorizing and assessing changes and trends. Be aware of problems this may create and discuss

opportunities with regulatory agencies for avoiding confusing results early during the plan-

formulation stages of the monitoring program. The monitoring protocols need to fit the specific river

setting and conditions.

Monitoring protocols need to anticipate different temporal and spatial needs. Design the

monitoring program to be flexible and allow for periodic assessments during rare events, such as

floods or droughts. Depending on the problems or questions to be addressed, the monitoring program

may need to capture seasonal variations in various parameters. Design the monitoring program so it

will address issues related to how the aggregate extraction operation may affect the river and how

river and watershed processes affect the extraction operation. It is often difficult to separate the

effects (changes) due to natural processes from those changes resulting from mining activities. It is

essential to monitor changes in key parameters in control reaches located outside the influence of

mining activities. This requires careful planning and may require initial testing.

Development of trends is very important and relies on developing consistent, continuous,

monitoring data each year so that long-term trends can be observed. Changes often occur due to

drought or floods, and it is important to evaluate those changes in light of long-term trends. Some

parameters, such as the river thalweg profile, are also noisy parameters and may typically display a

lot of annual variability. Therefore, it is important to have long-term data for key parameters to

understand what the natural range of seasonal variability may be, so annual changes are not

misunderstood to indicate adverse conditions.

Figure 1 provides an example of how a typical monitoring reach is designated and how

monitoring sites need to be included within the active mining reach as well as control reaches (in

natural settings) outside the influences of mining. Figures 2 through 7 provide photographs of

examples of typical annual monitoring activities that take place within the monitoring reach, such as

morphologic changes within the river channel, bank erosion, suspended sediment sampling, fine-

sediment storage in pools, and permeability monitoring in spawning areas.

Figure 1. Mining reaches and location of monitoring sites in Russian River near Cloverdale,

Sonoma County, California.

Figure 2. Typical morphological features of Russian River. Winter photo, 2006.

Figure 3. Buffer zone on skimmed bar in Russian River near Cloverdale

during high flows. Spring photo, 2004.

Figure 4. Monitored site of levee erosion on Russian River. Line along

eroded section shows approximate original location of levee toe. Bank

retreat is about 100 ft. Spring photo, 2004.

Figure 5. Suspended sediment sampling on Big Sulphur Creek (tributary to

Russian River). Winter photo, 2005.

Figure 6. Measurement of fine-sediment storage in pools of Russian River

near Cloverdale. Summer photo, 2003.

Figure 7. Measurement of permeability of spawning gravels on Russian

River near Cloverdale. Summer photo, 2002.

A Mining Industry Perspective:

Fish and Wildlife Considerations

Ron Rathburn

PBS Engineering and Environmental

Portland, Oregon

The aggregate mining industry within the United States, and Oregon in particular,

is working closely with operators to evaluate existing operations in response to the

environmental sensitivity of in-stream mining and its effects on fish and wildlife habitat.

From the standpoint of in-stream mining, the focus of this discussion will address fish

and wildlife issues involved in operation and permitting of mining operations in Oregon.

Historically, aggregate removal within Oregon streams has included commercial

and noncommercial activities involving coordination with local and state agencies for

permit approval. Mining outside of the active stream channel is regulated by the Oregon

Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI). In-stream aggregate

extraction is regulated by the Oregon Department of State Lands (DSL) in coordination

with Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and Oregon Department of

Fish and Wildlife (ODFW). In stream reaches subject to federal jurisdiction, the Army

Corps of Engineers, in coordination with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service and

the US Fish and Wildlife Service are involved in the permitting and review process. The

regulatory complexity of mining in streams has increased considerably over the past

decade, with the listing of salmonids in the Endangered Species Act and the addition of

Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

In conjunction with the changing regulatory environment, our knowledge of

channel hydraulics, sediment transport, and depositional processes has been documented

by numerous authors (Knighton 1984, Collins and Dunne 1990, Leopold 1994, Whitting

1998). The direct effect of human activities within the stream channel, to include mining

impacts on channel geometry, substrate composition and stability, turbidity, sediment

transport, etc., has been referenced in the literature (Kondolf 1998, Brown et al. 1998).

Indirect effects of mining on in-stream biota, food webs, and riparian habitat are also well

represented (Brown et al. 1998, Spence et al. 1996). A summary of the literature has been

presented in numerous agency publications designed to assist in regulatory evaluation of

mining projects (OWRRI 1995, Cluer 2004) and, most recently, an updated interagency

white paper (US Fish and Wildlife et al. 2005) that was prepared to guide the review and

design of mitigation and monitoring approaches in Oregon.

In response to the regulatory environment and the goal of protecting the natural

resources within Oregon’s streams, consulting firms have been working with the Oregon

Concrete and Aggregate Producers Association (OCAPA) and mining operators to

address the fish and wildlife, hydrological, and geological issues identified in this

symposium.

With the time available, I would like to provide a consultant’s perspective and

address the following:

• Ecological perspective

• Evaluation process

• Environmental issues

• Data deficiencies

• Industry approach

I realize that this symposium will address the resource issues in more detail, and

based upon time constraints, this discussion will represent a summarization of key issues.

A brief period will be provided at the end of this talk to address any questions that may

arise.

1) Ecological Perspective

There are multiple roles and corresponding perspectives of participants in this

symposium. These include academic researchers, regulatory and resource managers,

consultants, and mining representatives. All are part of the dynamic process involved in

the evaluation, protection, and/or extraction of aggregate resources within streams.

Historically, the industry has worked diligently to extract the aggregate and provide a

service to the local community. With our evolving understanding of the ecological

sensitivity of mining within streams, it is quite apparent that the industry must work

cooperatively with the community and environmental regulations if mining is to remain a

viable industry. Our roles in the future need not be distilled into a ”them vs. us”

mentality, but instead may be about how we can continue as an industry to perform

mining operations and still protect the natural resources from adverse impact.

As a consultant, I work toward a balance between sensitive ecological issues,

regulatory requirements, and mining constraints. In order to accomplish this within the

mining industry, we address

• identification of our clients’ needs

• identification of the regulatory requirements

• identification of the fish and wildlife resources affected by the project (general

overview)

• acquisition of information and development of a strategy toward balancing the

ecological resources

2) Evaluation Process

The mining of streams occurs in all regions of the state, and based upon revised

regulatory requirements, consultants are becoming more involved with the industry. Our

evaluation of fish and wildlife resources involves a systematic approach that includes

• review of the proposed operation

• alternative analysis

• identification of the fish and wildlife resources affected

• adequacy of baseline information

• identification of impacts and development of mitigation to eliminate adverse

affects for the project

• project feasibility and modification

3) Environmental Issues

The environmental issues have been clearly identified within the literature and are

categorized according to geology, hydrology, and stream biology. This represents a

somewhat simplistic grouping of disciplines and all are interrelated into a holistic

perspective of stream ecology. Major issues within the academic and regulatory

community involve a mining operation that ensures that

• the sediment extraction rate balances sediment supply within the watershed and

maintains channel morphology

• in-stream mining occurs in areas that are in dynamic equilibrium

• suspended sediments from mining do not adversely impact benthic invertebrates

(bottom dwelling), fish, or their habitats

• mining does not adversely impact

i. spawning and rearing habitat

ii. migration habitat

iii. riparian rorridor

• mining does not adversely impact stream complexity to include large woody

debris (LWD)

These environmental issues are not exhaustive and will be addressed by other

presenters in this symposium. As discussed in the literature and reviews of published

white papers, the hydrological, geological, and aquatic resource issues are complex and

vary considerably between watersheds. It is reasonable to develop generic responses to

specific aspects of mining, e.g., turbidity impacts, habitat destabilization, riparian

degradation, etc. In order to adequately evaluate a site and implement adequate mitigation

to address the identified impacts, site specific or localized information is required.

4) Data Deficiencies

In response to important economic issues of the industry, OCAPA and the

consultant community use available data from ODFW, DOGAMI, Watershed Councils,

Oregon Department of Water Resources, and federal agencies to evaluate a mining

project. In general, the resource management programs within Oregon provide very

qualitative data that does not offer enough specificity to address the risk issues identified

by the regulatory agencies for the drainage being evaluated. Based on my experience,

limited data is available in

• quantitative data on aquatic species, abundance, and distribution

• data on habitat requirements and completed limiting factors analysis

• channel morphology and flow

• sediment budgets for basin in general and stream in particular

• water quality data (turbidity focus)

• riparian assessment and condition

5) Industry Approach

Again, it is important to clarify that these data deficiencies are not exhaustive but

represent only a few technical areas that have impaired the ability to evaluate and permit

a mining operation in Oregon. Other issues are clearly defined in the interagency white

paper (US Fish and Wildlife et al. 2005).

OCAPA has been working with consultants and the mining operators to develop

mitigation measures to minimize impact to the aquatic environment. These efforts have

included a coordinated effort with DEQ, ODFW, and DSL to cost-effectively develop

mitigation measures that protect the fish and wildlife resources and minimize risk of in-

stream mining. These measures have also been identified within the interagency white

paper to mitigate resource sensitivities. These include

• integration of Best Management Practices (BMPs)

• work within the established in-water work period to avoid impact to sensitive

habitat usage of key life-history stages

• location of mining in-stream sections approved by ODFW

• limiting the number of gravel bars excavated per stream based upon habitat

sensitivity and coordinated with ODFW

• turbidity management according to DEQ operating guidelines

• controlled depth of bar removal based upon ODFW approval

• grading and shaping of gravel bars upon cessation of extraction

• use of strips and berms in excavation area

• no removal of LWD

In addition, the industry via its consultants is assisting operators to

• acquire baseline information to support the applications

• develop, in collaboration with regulators, a monitoring plan to evaluate pre- and

post-mining conditions

• develop interagency grants to evaluate hydrology, geology, and aquatic biology

in selected drainages within Oregon

In conclusion, I would like to thank the symposium sponsors for providing an

opportunity for the scientists, regulators, consultants, and mining representatives to

express their viewpoints regarding a dynamic and complex area of resource management

and permitting.

References

Brown, A. V., M. M. Lyttle, and K. B. Brown. 1998. Impacts of gravel mining on gravel

bed streams. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 127: 979–994.

Collins, B. and T. Dunne. 1990. Fluvial geomorphology and river-sediment mining: a

guide for planners, case studies included. Calif. Depart. Conserv., Div. Mines Geol.,

Spec. Pub. 98. 29 pp.

Cluer, B. 2004. The effects of sediment removal from freshwater salmonid habitat:

guidelines for the evaluation, design, and monitoring of sediment removal activities.

NOAA Fisheries Southwest Region, Santa Rosa, CA.

Knighton, D. 1984. Fluvial Forms and Processes. Edward Arnold/Hodder and Stoughton,

London.

Kondolf, G.M. 1998. Environmental effects of aggregate extraction from river channels

and floodplains. In: Aggregate resources; a global perspective (P. T. Blbrowsky, ed.)

pp. 113–129.

Leopold, L. B. 1994. A View of the River. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

Massachusetts.

NMFS-National Marine Fisheries Service. 2005. National Marine Fisheries Service,

National Gravel Extraction Guidance

OWRRI-Oregon Water Resources Research Institute, 1995. Gravel disturbance impacts

on salmon habitat and stream health. A report for the Oregon Division of State Lands.

Vol 1: Summary Report. 52 pp. Vol 2: Technical background report. 225 pp.

Spence, B. C., G. A. Lomnicky, R.M. Hughes, and R. P. Novitzki. 1996. An ecosystem

approach to salmonid conservation. TR-4501-96-6057. ManTech Environmental

Research Services Corp., Corvallis, OR.

US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, US Army Corps of

Engineers, US Environmental Protection Agency. 2005. Sediment removal from

active stream channels in Oregon. Internal Review Draft. 81 pp.

Whitting, P. J. 1998. Floodplain maintenance flows. Rivers 6: 160–170.


Planning and Implementation of Gravel Mines

Balancing Needs and Creating Partnerships

Jeff P. Johnson

Northwest Hydraulic Consultants Inc.

Seattle, Washington

Although this symposium is focused on the science and engineering aspects of in-

stream gravel extraction and its effects on fish habitat, there is an equally difficult and

costly planning process required before one has any hope of extracting gravel from

Pacific Northwest rivers and streams. For many years, our rivers had been an abundant

source of high-quality, prized aggregate; however, mining practices often damaged the

ecological health of these natural systems. Over the past 20 years, nearly all in-stream

mining in Oregon and Washington has been eliminated. It may be possible, through

continued data collection and scientific and engineering research, that procedures can be

developed to allow responsible mining in select areas. The challenge is to develop

techniques that do not harm habitat and that strike a balance between stakeholders’ needs.

The purpose of this presentation is to remind and educate symposium participants

that if there is to be future mining, significant effort will be required to unite

stakeholders. This will require establishing working relationships between people that

often have different and potentially conflicting responsibilities and missions.

An example of such a planning effort began in Eugene, Oregon, in 1997. The goal

was to bring together key stakeholders and agency personnel to develop a “set of guiding

principles” to allow responsible land-use activities while preserving and enhancing both

fish and wildlife habitat. The results were published in November 2001 by the McKenzie-

Willamette Confluence Project Steering Committee, in the form of a report titled Land

Use, Flood Control, and Habitat Enhancement Guidelines for the Confluence Area of the

McKenzie and Willamette Rivers. The confluence area is the home of many different

land-use activities, including several active floodplain-gravel operations.

The McKenzie-Willamette Confluence Committee included key members of

federal, state, and local agencies; aggregate producers; and the community—each with a

different set of needs, concerns, and authorities. The recommendations presented in the

steering committee report are based upon a comprehensive river engineering

investigation and biological evaluation of rivers and their associated fish and wildlife

habitats. The report presents guidelines for improving ecosystem conditions, allowing

floodplain sand and gravel mining, preserving agriculture, improving aesthetics and

recreation, monitoring conditions, and performing adaptive management.

This planning process produced a number of tangible positive outcomes but also

revealed several challenges. The effort produced a reasonable set of general guiding

principles for future activities within the confluence area. It also provided an excellent

opportunity for collaboration and teamwork between stakeholders who might not always

agree. The challenges—or what some may consider disappointments—are that the

guidelines lack authority to allow implementation of any of the recommended activities,

and it is not clear whether the guidelines carry any weight in the permit-approval process.

Agencies are set up to evaluate specific project proposals; therefore, they find it difficult

to provide definitive guidance as part of the planning process. In addition, agencies often

find it difficult to provide and commit staff to the process.

Possible opportunities for future in-stream gravel extraction include mining to

• maintain conveyance capacity within flood-control projects

• reduce lateral channel erosion that might threaten critical infrastructure

• restore and create fish and wildlife habitat

• manage excessive sediment deposition at road crossings, intakes, or other

structures

Conclusions derived from the McKenzie-Willamette confluence project and from

the author’s personal experience:

• First and most critical, continue scientific and engineering research and data

collection to seek ways to minimize the impact of gravel extraction on habitat, or

better yet, seek opportunities to improve habitat through innovative extraction

techniques and strategies.

• Publish and share the results of these investigations. Be honest, open, and

forthright—“tell it like it is.”

• Recognize that the old, destructive mining practices are no longer viable, but

don’t penalize new, innovative approaches for these past “sins.”

• Promote effective partnerships between stakeholders and agencies.

• Recognize and respect the desires, authorities, and responsibilities of all

stakeholders and agencies.

• Recognize that planning is an essential part of the process. It can be costly,

challenging, and unfortunately, at times, frustrating.

In-stream Gravel Extraction Symposium

Panel Discussion: Day 1, April 12, 2006

Facilitators: Guillermo Giannico and Frank Burris

Panelists: Rich Angstrom, Michael Church, Jeff Johnson, Peter Klingeman, Mathias Kondolf,

Robert MacArthur, Ron Rathburn

Question: How can we encourage regulatory agencies and research branches of agencies to

adopt data compilation, sediment budgets and demonstration projects that will broaden our

understanding of the effects and benefits of gravel mining?

Rich Angstrom: How? Well, I think we are all in a box -knowing what I know about how

restricted funding and resources are to the federal government, state agencies and the small

gravel companies on the coast. What you are asking requires money, and the “win” happens

when we all pool money and resources to solve a common problem. Federal agencies and

services should not have to do it by themselves. When resources from state and federal

agencies, the industry, maybe USGS, maybe some OWEB grants or in-kind services are

combined, they will allow us to go out and do those sediment budgets or transport studies. I’m

completely empathetic with the budget limitations of the services and the Corp, and how much

this particular administration has been cutting other organizations; they just don’t have the

funds. For us as an industry to say to the government: “you go solve it”, isn’t fair. It isn’t fair,

from my perspective, for the government to say: “you go and solve it”, because we don’t have

the funds to do it either. It’s going to take all of us working together to be able to accomplish

what the questioner asks.

Robert MacArthur: Many of the agencies aren’t positioned to conduct basic research; it is not

in their charter or set of goals. So, the first thing we need to do is to suggest to those in charge

that highly capable staff be allowed the opportunity to conduct basic research to answer

questions like those just posed to us. A number of staff in this room are good scientists that no

longer do research, but are stuck in the regulatory side of the industry. So, identify and then

seek opportunities for cooperative research to adjust some of the issues that were discussed

today; those questions that aren’t being answered any place other than by the media and

academia at this point in time. The real people who are on the front lines dealing with these

questions that are difficult to even define, let alone answer, might have better contacts at the

state and federal levels to secure funding for needed research.

The second thing we need to do is make research results more available to everyone. I

think if we put everything in a hierarchy from the larger state and federal agencies with the most

money and resources, beneath them would be the local county and city municipalities that are

regulating their resources and they have their own responsibilities to comply with the rules from

above and requests from below. We currently have an aggregate industry that’s trying to do

their operations and make a living and supply materials to the public and then you have Joe

Public who wants to just put a patio in his back yard and do some other things. The whole

industry, including regulators, needs to be able to communicate up or down through the chain

because everybody has certain levels of data collection and research that they are doing on their

own. The aggregate industry is very motivated to conduct basic research and monitoring. They

will do research to answer specific questions that will benefit them, but because they are

competitors they may not be willing to share it with their neighbors, or their aggregate industry

buddies because that’s just not part of the current culture. Even agencies that have grant funds

to try some unique restoration and enhancement studies don’t share the results of those studies,

either the successes or the non-successes, unless you are invited to attend the seminars where

the results of that particular case study are presented. So again, are research results available to

folks? I think there is a way of reasonably and ethically motivating a group such as the

aggregate industry with money to do research in their own backyard that will answer some of

the current questions facing the industry. Then there is a responsibility to have the results of that

research compiled and distributed to others. My point is that there is no means of tracking the

results of research at this time. There is no “clearing-house” where results can be shared unless

you are part of that inner-sanctum and you go to government and agency seminars and get-

togethers. So maybe one of the agencies could step up and take a leadership roll as opposed to

parallel redundant rolls. This will create one clearing-house to pool resources and organize

specific focused research results and information that address some of these issues that we just

talked about.

Michael Church: I thought that the question pointed to a slightly deeper conundrum in a

couple of ways. First of all, I think resources will become available to improve gravel

management practices only in proportion to our ability to demonstrate to a larger public the

value of improving gravel management. That is, by collecting better information in order to

improve gravel management, we can contribute substantially to the improvement of

environmental stewardship in ways that a larger public appreciates and wants. So I think in the

first instance, the first answer of the question as it was originally posed, suggests that we, in the

research side of things, need to invent projects that demonstrate quite clearly the substantial

value of increasing the information, the body of knowledge, which surrounds gravel and

aggregate management. There is a second deeper issue to this as well; that is, in large measure

these issues arise because gravel is an increasingly scarce resource. We’re finding that in places

where extraction comes into conflict with other environmental services that the public

increasingly values the environmental services; and if the public values these things, it suggests

that gravel is possibly, currently, an under-valued resource. Part of the solution to finding

further resources to improve gravel management might be the revaluation of gravel as a

resource so that it actually brings a higher price in the marketplace. That is a fairly radical

suggestion but I think it is one we should make. Gravel is largely invisible in our society,

absolutely essential to an undertaking, but nobody outside this room ever thinks about it. That is

something that needs to change.

Question: With the expected increase in population and the high demand for gravel that is

going to come from that increase, how are we going to continue to rely on a fairly scarce

resource, especially on the coast, to sustain growth, and what other alternatives do we have?

Rich Angstrom: That is actually a very good question and it is a hard question, because the

coast of Oregon is a real focal point for growth, and there is no way that the rivers along the

coast are going to be able to sustain that growth. Not all the rivers along the coast are like the

Chetco that has lots of material available. Some of the rivers have scarcer resources than others

and that exacerbates the problem. Trust me, many of our industry folks are trying to figure out

how to get their operations over to the coast to capitalize on that growth. But, the question really

is, where are we going to go for more material? We are limited a bit on the geology that we

have on the coast, so, one of the things we are exploring is barging. We can barge material into

different coast ports, but the price of doing that is actually pretty high. In fact, we are selling

material for four to six, maybe even eight bucks a yard and just the cost to barge the material

down here is much higher than that. But society is just going to have to absorb that cost. I don’t

think barging is the solution. The best possibility for supplying the increasing demand for gravel

is just taking it from some other river system or some other place. For example, a big chunk of

the east side of this state can provide good, high-quality aggregates, and in order to move that

gravel throughout the state, the public is going to have to figure out how to make investments in

infrastructure to rail it. That means putting railroad spurs in to the coast communities. Some of

our companies like LTM and Morris Bros., are now seeing that they have to build a railroad

spur into their facilities if they want to move material. We cannot rely on the rivers forever.

The second point is that society is going to have to make some decisions about where

they are going to get aggregate and be willing to partner with the industry to make the

investments needed to put rail spurs into all the coastal communities. It is cost prohibitive for

the industry to support the cost of the infrastructure alone. In my view, the options are pretty

limited, mostly because of the geology where we are.

Question: How can we use the aggregate that we are taking out of the rivers most efficiently for

the high-end products and how can we encourage recycling of aggregate?

Rich Angstrom: We actually recycle a lot of asphalt already; and we are able to blend about a

third of the recycled material back in and still produce a high quality product. It is a pretty good

deal for us to recycle, especially with the increasing price of oil. However, we’ve got a way to

go before we recycle concretes. I just featured a member of my association up in the Portland

area that does nothing but recycle concretes. He has figured out a way of crushing them and

getting all of the rebar and other kinds of things out of them. Recycled concrete can’t be put

back into high-value product, but it can be used for intermediate value products like base

material or base rock.

To answer the first part of you question: the industry is going to use those rocks in the

most efficient manner possible, because that is how they maximize the value of the resource.

But that is never a good answer to give a regulator or the general public who doesn’t necessarily

trust the marketplace as always being the most efficient. Mined aggregates not only produce

perfect concrete sized rocks, but also produce sand, pea gravels, cobbles and larger sizes as

well. When aggregates are processed we separate out the sand and we actually have multiple

markets for sand products. Next, we separate out the pea gravels and the one-inch rocks that are

ideal for concrete and then we have the cobbles and the bigger rocks that can be crushed up for

asphalt. That is how the industry tends to use the river rocks. The question is whether the

industry will support a policy change that says if you are taking rock out of the rivers, that you

will limit its use for those higher-end products and not use it for other products that can be

produced with lower quality aggregate. I can’t speak for all of my producers but I think I can

speak for the industry and say that we would support that as a general concept. We should not

be wasting high quality aggregates. There are only so much high quality aggregate available,

and I think it is a good policy that our guys on the coast should be required to use it for its

highest and best purpose. They should not be able to use it for fill and other kinds of things that

are low-end use.

Robert MacArthur: You go to the grocery store and you find that organically grown

vegetables cost more than the same vegetables that don’t have the organic label on them. So

maybe we are moving toward using high quality aggregate for high-end uses just as Michael

Church suggested.

Question: What are some practical means for stabilizing or rehabilitating the gravel bars and

the rivers upstream from the bars that are privately skimmed and have a history of gravel

skimming?

Robert MacArthur: Fortunately for us, Brian Cluer is in the room, and I’m sure that tomorrow

he is going to talk about the essential needs for river and gravel bar stability. I’m sure that he

will also share some of his ideas and probably some of the new NOAA Fisheries guidelines that

are being tried in various areas. I’m guessing, but I also think that Dennis Halligan will be

talking tomorrow about some of the various mining methods that are successful at stabilizing

rivers.

Peter Klingeman: When you think about a meandering river point bar or maybe even an

altered bar that may form as a very small feature on a very mild curve, if the curve becomes

amplified through erosion processes, as the outer bank moves away it produces a shear stress on

the inner bank. If you map a gravel body that is moving over time, some of the ones that I have

looked at on the Willamette River tend to have coarse material all the way back to the back side

of the bar, down low, and they keep on building coarse material toward the front and toward the

downstream side. Thus, the bars tend to grow in the outward and downward direction, and you

begin to get fines settling above that, resulting in the deposition of enough product from the

industry point of view. A point bar is a beautiful site to go to because you have relatively large

material throughout the lower elevations, and by stripping away the top of a flood plain deposit

you have already partially segregated the sands and the small gravels. A lot of sorting goes on

by a river as it is developing these sites. So, I was intrigued by Mike’s comment this morning:

instead of scalping a bar, you do some work by bringing material back up from the channel. I

think that it is very instructive to think about what you have done to the overall cross section of

the river when you scalp the bar. Scalping a bar changes it at all river flows and affects the

position of the bar in the river as well. An alternative way of removing material would be to try

to take less material from the bar and to rebuild the shape of the bar by going into the adjacent

channel to bring the material back up. There are places, for example, on the Santiam River,

where the river makes a very tight bend, and material is deposited steeper than the natural angle

of repose because the secondary currents are so strong in that bend. As soon as you start to step

down from the bars into the river channel, you slide down into the water on the steeply

deposited material. So, bars are very different in their composition and many aspects, and

within point bars you can generally find coarse gravel sizes at greater depth.

Question: Can we classify rivers in terms of gravel availability? What is the evidence for our

ability to do this?

Michael Church: That is one thing I was trying to get at this morning when I was talking about

threshold channels versus labile channels. Threshold channels tend to have a very strong

differentiation between the coarse material that is deposited on the surface and the size of

material that is deposited underneath. This difference implies a high degree of washing and a

low rate of sediment renewal from upstream. Thus, most heavily armored channels provide

relatively low aggregate supply, and the heavier the armor, the lower the gravel supply. That is

the reason why I suggested that labile sites were the preferred sites for finding gravel, as they

are the sites where the renewal supply is apt to be more generous. Thus, from the description of

different morphological kinds of sediment and sizes, I think you have a first order, qualitative

tool for determining where supplies are apt to be better and where supplies are apt to be not as

good.

Question: What might we measure and how?

Michael Church: Well, one thing to do is to simply look at what we call the armor ratio. It is

something you probably want to do anyway, because you see one thing on the surface and when

you start to dig you get quite a different quality material from underneath. The armor ratio is

typically the ratio of the typical grain size on the surface to the median size of the material at the

site. And if you‘ve got a large armor ratio, certainly a ratio greater than about 3:1, you’ve got a

quite heavily armored site. If you have a very modest ratio of around 1.5:1, that implies there is

frequent exchange between the surface and subsurface. It might be an indication that the site is

aggrading, and that you have a relatively generous aggregate supply. So I think a good deal of

work needs to be done to develop those kinds of measures. This is something we have been

looking at recently and you will be seeing more about in the near future. I think in as much as

the degree to which the river successfully sorts and segregates sediment does depend on the

supply rate, and there are some useful relations there that can be developed.

Question: At one of the bars that we saw in the slides today, there was a wide, large, vegetated

buffer strip at the edge of the mined bar. Why was that there, and what is it doing to the river?

Robert MacArthur: There are several agencies involved in permits required to actually

participate in bar skimming, and the county of Sonoma has a set of rules to determine what they

call set back distances from the normal low water edge. The rule used to be that the operator had

to leave fifteen feet of gravel untouched between the normal low water edge and their gravel

removal operation. That distance has since been increased to 25 feet. However, the set-back

required by California Fisheries is 50 feet. The Water Quality Control Board, which is a state

agency involved with water quality and fish and things, has a third criteria, which is a fifty-foot

top lift with 2:1 side slopes, and you can’t disturb the vegetation. So, basically the latest

experiment on set back from the edge of water on skimmed bars, if any vegetation is present,

and you go by regional water quality criteria, is a top lift beginning fifty-foot from the edge of

the water with a 2:1 slope on the back side. The permit further requires that any vegetation that

is growing, whether it is mature or not, cannot be removed. So, I’m sure that Brian Cluer might

talk about this a little bit tomorrow; I certainly will. We have experimented with this for a few

years and because the Russian River and the area of the Elke bar, that I showed, is narrow, steep

and confined by levies, encouraging and allowing gravel bars and islands to grow and become

mature with high, 4 to 6 inch diameter vegetation on it, is turning out to be a major cause of

channel relocation and realignment, and is creating some vegetated islands. We are trying to

deal with that as a management issue. The experiment was cast and we are learning from it. We

are now trying to figure out how to lower or reduce the dimensions of those features and still

comply with the initial intent of the set back. It has kind of grown from a set back to an in-

channel vegetated feature and so we realize that we are adjusting the hydraulics of the river and

doing somewhat of a disservice to the function of the river. Good question.

Question: Is data collection centralization possible, and where can we look at adding a facility

to do this?

Rich Angstrom: In some ways it is. There are two things that come to my mind. The first is

that we do a lot of data collection and as an industry spend a lot of money to do it. This data

gets turned in with permits and things like that and at least it goes to the state and it may go to

the Feds. The Feds may get copies of it, including the Corps, and we don’t know what they do

with it after that. We think it probably gets put in a file someplace. That is our perspective. The

second thing is that the industries themselves actually collect a lot of data. This data is often not

shared for competitive reasons. It doesn’t matter if research is conducted in water quality or a

flood plain issue; if a company is going to solve a particular problem or spend money on it,

they’re not very inclined to put it into the public domain. I think that the resolution to all of this

is, just as you said, to establish a central spot for data to go that is well thought out, and useful,

so we see that there is value in doing it. In fact, from an industry perspective, if we thought that

the data we collected was actually being used, and was important (and we didn’t have the sense

that it was getting round-filed someplace) we might do a much better job of collecting the data

and be more careful with what we are submitting. The second thing is that I still think a team of

technical experts from a partnership between state and federal agencies ought to be looking at

what we should be collecting and how we should be collecting it, and then working to figure out

how to fund those collection methods. This team of experts should also be used as a kind of

steering group to manage the data. I think that this would be a productive relationship amongst

all the different parties.

Jeff Johnson: I guess I’d like to comment on that. We do quite a bit of work for FEMA, and

this has been an issue with FEMA for some time. You have consultants and agencies producing

numerical models of stream channels all over the United States. What do you do with all those

models and where do they go? FEMA has set up a repository in Washington, D.C. that they call

their mapping library and archive. When you finish a study, your data and information is

submitted to that library, where it is archived. They have been collecting research data for thirty

years and archiving it. Most of it has now been micro-fiched and so forth. That is one way it is

done in a different industry. It is headed by a federal agency, there is a structure to it, but it costs

a heck of a lot of money for FEMA to maintain that library and data repository. I don’t know if

anything like that is possible for the aggregate industry. It would take a lot of money and it

would take a lot of structure. Another means though is to take a step back from a repository

approach, and consider how to simply share information. Much more sharing might take place if

universities were conducting the research. This Symposium is a good start. Right now we are

exchanging information. We could have another symposium dedicated solely to presentation of

data, for instance, and begin to exchange data in that sense. One of the things with data is that it

really isn’t any good unless you explain how it was collected and what it was to be used for. So

there has got to be some processing that goes on with that data; just storing a bunch of data on a

computer somewhere is going to be useless. So, it is a great question and the neat thing is we

have initiated a conversation, and I think there might be different levels of data exchange that

we really could undertake.

Ron Rathburn: This Symposium is a very important collaboration between the scientific

community, consultants, and the industry itself. I am hoping that some of these questions that

are very key, particularly regarding the information on storage and delivery, are something that

this Symposium will address in more detail later. This is a question that we, as a group, need to

consider. I want to share information within my industry and among gravel consulting

professionals. I spend two or three years collecting information that a client doesn’t want to

share, therefore I keep it. But I think with a little pressure I can get clients to release that

information. I believe that the regulatory community would benefit from information that

relates to the sensitivity of some of the species and some of the quantitative items that I have

been working on. So, I am suggesting that we work on this as a team.

Peter Klingeman: One of the first things I want to do is pose a question to ODFW. For

example, in Corvallis we have a group that goes out every summer, teams of people doing

habitat stuff and they work with Kim Jones. They collect a lot of information on a range of

different sizes of streams. We also have biologists who have no streams in their region with a

wealth of information stored in their head and possibly in files as well. I don’t know how that

information gets communicated other than at annual meetings of Oregon AFS or places like

that. For example, does it ever get communicated to a group like this, outside of the biological

community?

Comment from member of audience: You’re probably right, we could share information

better. Some is posted on line and we are getting more of it on line. The STEP program has a lot

of discussions and exchange of info.

Peter Klingeman: There are many ways to exchange information. My perception is that when

information is collected for regulatory purposes it is not as much shared around as it is used as a

lever. I was thinking of a couple of models, Tillamook is the one that comes to mind. I was

involved as one of the non-legislators on a flood control committee and chaired the committee.

It was very interesting because given the strength of being a legislative interim committee it was

possible to get presentations, testimony, and so on from all sorts of different groups that bore on

flood control and the Tillamook River. The draw back was that ultimately the main goal of the

committee seemed to be to write legislation. So, I was involved more or less at the same time

with something else which was organized by the County Commissioners of Tillamook County.

As maybe you who are not familiar with Oregon may not know, the Tillamook has been under

water several times up to about the tops of the beds in the motels and the main highway and so

on. It is a situation where they have built cow pads, not paddies, but cow pads, so cows can get

above the water. They had a chronic flooding problem which could in part have been, and was

in the past, answered by channel dredging. The County Commissioners, on two or three

occasions, invited in a whole group of different people to bring in their knowledge of rivers or

other issues, and I was there to comment on hydraulics. Ultimately the County Commissioners

brought in a mediator that was totally removed from the issues to sort it all out, and I don’t even

know what the outcome was. But it struck me that in some cases for particular locations, there

are other kinds of models that might work. Using the STEP program and ODFW as an example,

an AFS committee might undertake the task of bringing information on stream gravel

management to the public or the industry instead of everyone keeping it internal, in-house.

Michael Church: I want to address what I think is the intention of the original question, and

that is if we can get information, and pool it, we will have a firmer basis for making decisions

and we may be able to reduce the degree of conflict that surrounds how to deal with river

management issues. And I simply want to say that, this isn’t necessarily so. Scientific

information is never absolute. Scientists know this very well. There are two sorts of

complications with data. First, with the best will in the world and the best use of contemporary

theory, you may not completely understand the problem. You may be bushwhacked by

something that you didn’t understand. But even more important than that, scientific

measurements are never absolutely accurate; there is error that attends any kind of observation

that we make. One of the things I did with my Fraser River studies was to try to be a good

scientist, and put a good deal of effort into estimating the precision of my sediment budget

estimates. They varied by plus or minus twenty or thirty percent, which, those of you that do

sediment transport measurement know, is pretty darn good. But, those in the committee that

wanted to see gravel come out of the river immediately grabbed a high estimate and those that

didn’t want to see gravel extraction happen immediately grabbed the low estimate; and those

that were simply skeptical said: “well hey, Professor Church has no clue what he is talking

about”. It is quite clear that information has to be interpreted and interpreted by each party in

ways that suit its own case, and in the end, building a mutual trust amongst the contending

parties, and not just providing data, is the real solution. Although I certainly agree that the

universal collection and storage of all the relative data is a very desirable thing to do, and maybe

the way to do that is to put it in the hands of an apparently disinterested party such as a

university.

Dennis Halligan: On that same line there is actually a model in practice right now in Humbolt

County, in Northern California, called the County of Humbolt Extraction Review Team. There

is physical monitoring, and in some cases there is biological monitoring also tied in with the

physical data. All of those data get put into annual reports, while only some of the cross-section

information gets to NOAA Fisheries and gets formally submitted to the county Gravel

Extraction Review Teams (GERT). The GERT is the repository for this information and they

also produce annual bound reports about gravel extraction in Humbolt County for the state.

Every five or ten years they also produce a summary of the data based on a cross-section of one

or more profiles. The summary reports also includes aerial photos, bank erosion information,

changes in storage, and an idea of whether the channel is aggrading and degrading, and if so, in

what reach. So the GERT is taking these data and actually using it to produce reports. In turn,

these reports are actually used to make meaningful extraction management decisions that are

then fed back into the next round of extraction permits. The GERT members are independent

and they are funded through a barometric sliding scale where the larger operators pay more for

the services than the smaller operators do, and thus, there is a means to help pay for this. GERT

members also go out and give recommendations on the extraction plans. We have a program

like that. It is tied to actual permit conditions. So that may be the first step.

Question: Could you explain a bit better the situation you described earlier regarding flooding

in the Tillamook area?

Peter Klingeman: We have five rivers that come in: the Cheltis, the Trask, the Wilson, the

Miami and the Tillamook River. Of those, I think the Wilson, has the largest drainage area, and

either it or the Tillamook provided huge amounts of gravel in World War II to build the pad

where the blimp or balloon hangars are located. So, a large amount was taken out and

presumably recruited back into the river system from upland sources since that time. But if you

are thinking about it from a truly riverine point of view, you might ask: “can we increase the

cross-sectional area to deliver the water without flooding over the bank into the cow pastures?”

Alternatively: “are the cow pastures a natural part of the floodplain that is cut-off since the

levies have been put up along the river?” But when you think about it, the variable in the system

is Tillamook Bay, because it is an estuarine system that has filled in tremendously since fires in

the twenties and thirties. So you have compounded the raised elevation of development plus the

tidal effects which create high tide flooding that goes over the top of the bed posts in the local

motels and goes down to the level of the mattress again by low tide. There are a lot of physical

complications for the system to deal with. The major conflict was between those that wanted to

remove the gravel versus those that were considering what gravel extraction was doing to fish

habitat. Those were the reduced variables that people were arguing about back in the late

1990’s.

Comment from member of the audience: Farmers are able to remove less than 50 cubic yards

of gravel yearly for road building and maintenance without acquiring a permit, is that right?

Rich Angstrom: I actually would like to comment about the state’s 50 cubic yard exemption.

The Federal Government and the Clean Water Act does not have such an exemption. In fact, the

Federal Government and the Clean Water Act regulates down to zero. In Oregon, that 50 cubic

yard exemption for agricultural practices was designed so the farmers could get materials for

their roads and other onsite farm uses; and that is appropriate, at least in my estimation. My

opinion is to allow the farmers to have small amounts of material to keep their roads up, even

though round rocks don’t really make good road base. There are probably other uses for that

gravel on farms besides roads. The environmental issues and the community impacts are of

concern to our industry because while we are regulated on gravel removal right down to

whether we are capturing smolts if we leave little indentations and things of that nature, they

aren’t so limited and they can go out and dig holes. I’ve been a little bit frustrated by the Federal

Government’s position on that. In fact, I’m not going to use names here, but, one leader came to

a meeting when we were discussing getting rid of that limitation and said that it was not an

enforcement priority for the Federal Government, and so, it persists. If not done right it could be

an environmental problem, but it falls under the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s

jurisdiction and it has a lot of political overtones to it.

End of Panel Discussion Session, Day 1.

Site-specific Harvest Methods to Reduce Impacts to Salmonids

Dennis Halligan

Natural Resources Management Corporation

Eureka, California

Introduction

Instream aggregate harvesting in California has been conducted in a variety of ways.

Historic and under-regulated operations have the potential to severely impact salmonid habitat.

The level of impact to fish from instream aggregate operations varies depending on site

characteristics, species present, life history stages of concern, harvest techniques, and proximity

to aquatic habitat. More recent regulatory schemes have evolved to ensure that any impact on

salmonids or their habitats is minimized or mitigated by establishing a set of fixed standards with

which mining operations are required to comply. This type of even-handedness makes it easier to

regulate mining operations, but the environmental or operational benefits vary in their degree at

each site, with some locations being over-protected, some under-protected, and others just about

right. Regardless of the regulatory methodology, however, the issues are the same—how to

conduct operations and how to do so with as little impact as possible. Currently, in many

counties the regulatory requirements for instream gravel harvesting operations do not allow for

site-specific treatments, which is not as effective in protecting salmonids as when the precise

location, habitat conditions, and proposed actions are considered as a whole.

Instream operations in Humboldt County, California, evolve from pressures due to the

establishment of regulations, the addition of salmonid species protection under the Endangered

Species Act (ESA), new available monitoring data and methods, and the increasing awareness by

companies and the public regarding potential impacts to aquatic habitat. Humboldt County’s

rivers, including the Mad River, contain Chinook salmon, coho salmon, and steelhead trout, all

of which are listed as threatened under the Federal ESA. Coho are also listed as threatened under

the California ESA. Critical habitat has also been designated for these three species. Needless to

say, the use of these rivers by both salmonids and extraction operators leads to a very active, and

evolving, regulatory environment.

The current state of operations in the Mad River in Humboldt County does not portray

the one-size-fits-all regulatory and harvesting techniques of the past, but instead considers site-

specific bar characteristics, adjacent low- and high-flow salmonid habitat, river geomorphology,

and restoration at each extraction site. The evolutionary process leading to the present situation

took several years of trial and error, data collection and analysis, consultations, and development

of non-traditional extraction techniques.

A Little History

The Mad River encompasses approximately 485 square miles, with a mainstem length of

115 miles, until it drains into the Pacific Ocean about 75 miles south of the Oregon/California

state line. Annually, up to 175,000 cubic yards of aggregate are extracted from the Mad River,

between river miles 6 and 13.5, by five companies—Mercer-Fraser, Miller-Almquist, Granite

Construction, Eureka Ready Mix (ERM), and Mad River Sand and Gravel (MRS&G).

Since 1996, gravel-extraction activities in Humboldt County have been permitted under

Section 404 of the Clean Water Act through the Army Corps of Engineers’ Letter of Permission

(LOP) 96-1, which originally terminated in 2001. LOP 96-1 established a set of countywide

extraction standards that applied to all companies regardless of site conditions. For a variety of

reasons, a new LOP was not issued by the Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) in 2001, but the

96-1 was annually extended beyond its expiration date three times, in 2001, 2002, and again in

2003. Each extension required the Corps to formally consult with the National Marine Fisheries

Service (NMFS), according to Section 7 of the ESA. Each Section 7 consultation process

resulted in a non-jeopardy biological opinion (BO) and an incidental take statement, but also

delayed the start of extraction preparation and operations until well after the extraction season

started on June 1. Operators are naturally pressured to fulfill a year’s worth of harvest goals

before approximately October 15, when the season ends due to constraints from weather and fish

migratory patterns.

In 2003, the Corps had originally intended to establish a new LOP, but when they issued

LOP 2003-1, NMFS produced a draft BO that determined that the LOP would likely jeopardize

the continued existence of the salmonids and adversely modify coho critical habitat (thus known

as a “jeopardy BO”). The jeopardy BO came as a shock to the operators, especially since the

proposed operations were no different than in previous years when there had been four previous

non-jeopardy opinions, and salmon numbers were on the rise.

It was early summer when the jeopardy BO was issued. It was mid-summer when

representatives in government were called, meetings were held, and everyone realized that there

wasn’t enough time to address NMFS’s concerns with LOP 2003-1, reconsult, and allow the

companies at least a partial season. The agencies chose to extend LOP 96-1 one more year, if it

contained modifications that addressed NMFS’s major concerns. LOP 96-1 was modified, in part

by the addition of “Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives,” originating from NMFS’ jeopardy

BO, and the modified LOP 96-1 BO was completed on September 3, 2003. The consultation

process effectively stopped extraction operations in the entire county for most of the season,

leaving only a few weeks to extract an entire year’s supply of sand and gravel.

It became obvious that having all the operations in the county under one umbrella permit,

using a standardized extraction planning process, did not optimally address the site-specific

habitat issues and bar characteristics. A few critical issues on one river could hold up the entire

LOP process, result in a jeopardy decision, and delay extraction on all Humboldt County rivers.

After everyone went through this trying experience, companies and agencies alike realized that

another approach was needed.

A New Approach

Two companies, ERM and MRS&G, decided that the best way to avoid potential future

problems with the LOP was to acquire individual 404 permits for their operations. In January of

2004, ERM and MRS&G began seeking technical assistance from NMFS for the 404 permit-

approval process. The operators collaborated with NMFS on development of the environmental

baseline condition. A review of historic (1942–2003) aerial photographs proved invaluable for

this effort. These showed that since 1953, when a large flood occurred, there appeared to be a

gradual recovery of instream and riparian habitat within the extraction reaches. In fact, the

consensus of the group was that the 1942 and 2003 aerial photos appeared to show the best

habitat conditions. That made everyone, especially NMFS, feel more at ease, since it appeared

that instream and riparian conditions were getting better, not worse.

The consulting group then identified locations within the active channel that were used

by salmonids for spawning, rearing, and adult holding. This included identifying high winter

flow use areas that were characterized by variable topography and riparian vegetation. This

process reinforced what we already knew—that individual gravel bars have different

topographies, planforms, deposition patterns, and vegetative characteristics, all of which have a

significant influence on the adjoining aquatic habitat. The new information about the rivers

showed that different extraction reaches experienced varying amounts of salmonid use. For

example, there was little spawning activity, less summertime juvenile rearing, and less high-flow

habitat in the lower Mad River extraction reach (river mile 6 to 8) as opposed to the upper reach,

which contained the full range of fish use by the various life history stages. Therefore, the

variability of salmonid use in the vicinity of individual extraction areas suggested that a more-

adaptive management plan could be developed that would provide a flexible level of protection

that was commensurate with the adjacent habitat sensitivity. As it was evident that the one-size-

fits-all tradition bar skim would be inadequate to address the fisheries concerns, the companies

and NMFS determined that it was necessary to develop a number of extraction options that tiered

off of the basic, traditional skimming method.

The new harvesting techniques for better addressing the variability found on the river

while still allowing for economical operations included: narrow skims, secondary channel skims,

inboard skims, horseshoe skims, high floodplain skims, wet and dry pits, and oxbow and alcove

extractions. Each of these methodologies had its own set of mitigation measures, such as

perimeter buffers, elevational offsets, connections to secondary or low-flow channels to reduce

stranding potential, post-extraction grooming and grades, and others. So how does a company

determine which technique is appropriate for a specific area?

The planning process starts by conducting a series of monitoring activities, the first of

which is to obtain spring aerial photographs. These, coupled with surveyed cross-sections, help

identify the amount of recruitment or deposition on the previous year’s post-extraction surface

for each individual gravel bar and potential areas for harvest operations. The photos and cross-

sections are also used to locate high-flow secondary channels and other winter-period salmonid

habitat elements. The next step is to walk and wade the extraction reaches during the low-flow

period and map individual salmonid habitat polygons onto the aerial photographs. Habitats of

concern include alcoves, adult holding, spawning, edgewaters, and age 2+ steelhead and coho

rearing habitats. Through this work we develop an understanding of where low- and high-flow

salmonid habitat and potential extraction areas are located. We are also able to identify those

locations where potential impacts to salmonids and their habitats may be greatest, and then tailor

extraction operations to minimize adverse effects as much as possible.

A series of proposed extraction techniques is developed once the preliminary aerial

photograph and field work are completed. The specific extraction methods are designed to

reduce impacts to the low- and high-flow salmonid habitat in the vicinity of that gravel bar as

much as possible. Some of the protection measures are designed to maintain a stable thalweg

during low to high flow, with the understanding that very low-frequency flood events may

negate the mitigations. The potential effects of temporary bridge construction are also minimized

by a seasonal operating restriction and locating the crossings away from spawning and age 2+

steelhead rearing habitat, if possible. Once the proposed plans are developed, they are sent to the

review team.

A field review with experienced company personnel, agency representatives, and the

County of Humboldt Extraction Review Team (CHERT) is conducted as soon as possible, once a

set of proposed extraction plans is submitted. The purpose of the field visit is to discuss the

proposed plan, review bar characteristics and salmonid habitat, identify temporary bridge

locations, and provide feedback or recommendations on the proposal. Bars that need a bridge

usually require additional terms such as details concerning the bridge’s removal and a

consequentially abridged operation season. The recommendations are incorporated into the set of

final plans, which are then sent to CHERT and NMFS for approval. Operations can begin once

the final plans are approved.

This type of adaptive planning has advantages over traditional permitted operations. For

example, reaches that do not have as much salmonid use can be targeted for heavier harvesting,

using more traditional bar-skimming approaches. Reaches with heavier salmonid use are subject

to a more-tailored approach that may also include habitat enhancement operations and the ability

to harvest aggregate following a winter season of poor recruitment. One such habitat-

enhancement technique is the high floodplain skim. This type of operation can be used to

develop riparian vegetation in an area where it is currently lacking. Vegetation development can

be promoted by skimming a high floodplain (five-year flood elevation or higher) down to an

elevation that would promote backwatering and settling of silt and sand, creating a seedbed.

Planting of willow and cottonwood cuttings could give the area’s vegetation a developmental

jumpstart and provide shade along the river. This technique would likely be a one-time

operation, since the extraction site would fill in with fine sediment and be choked with riparian

vegetation in later years. This type of plan could be implemented during a year when there was

poor recruitment onto the bars. Therefore, economical operations could be conducted during an

otherwise non-extraction year that would also set the stage for development of high-quality

riparian and aquatic habitats.

For this planning process to work, it is important that all parties understand the objectives

and requirements placed upon the others and be willing to think creatively from operational,

economic, habitat protection, and regulatory perspectives. In addition, it is important that staff

working on both the company and agency sides have both extraction and field biology

experience. This collaborative process, engaging both agencies and companies to develop a

project description, can lead to creative thinking that will better address everyone’s concerns.

Moreover, this process could lead to the development of site-specific extraction techniques that

enable economical operations while minimizing impacts to salmonids and, in some cases,

enhance riparian and aquatic habitats.


Rocks and Rivers—We Need Both!

The Future of Oregon Coastal Aggregate Resources

Dorian Kuper,

Kuper Consulting LLC

Tualatin, Oregon

Seven counties are situated along the Oregon Coast. These counties include:

Clatsop, Tillamook, Lincoln, Coos, Curry, and portions of Lane and Douglas. Typically,

along the coast, the small towns and cities are located 20 to 30 miles apart and separated

by areas of steep, forested terrain, the majority of which is public land managed by the

state and federal park systems.

The quality of aggregate resources on the Oregon coast is highly variable due to

different geologic materials that occur along the coast. The variable nature of the

geologic deposits creates highly variable conditions for developing aggregate resources.

The demand for high-quality aggregate resources along the coast is increasing due to

development pressures, forcing aggregate operators to look to remote sources for new

sites. In order to meet these needs, a combination of quarry rock and sand and gravel sites

will continually need to be developed.

Coastal Geologic Resources

The coast is situated in a diverse geologic environment with many bedrock types.

The northern coast is generally characterized by volcanic bedrock that flowed at one time

into the ocean, creating "pillow” basalts. These basalts tend to yield mediocre-quality

aggregate due to a high degree of weathering and sodium content. The central coastal

area consists of highly variable basalts of pillow origin with sporadic areas of dense,

hard, columnar jointing. These sporadic, isolated areas are a good source of aggregate.

The southern coast is a mixture of sporadic, basaltic “plugs,” metamorphic bedrock, and

recent sediments. The aggregate quality is variable, depending on the nature of the use.

Large, oversized blocks from these plugs are used for jetty stone and rip-rap; however,

they are difficult to process for construction aggregate.

Northern Coast Resources

Clatsop and Tillamook counties are generally underlain by a variety of volcanic

rock that was laid down in different geologic environments. The volcanic rock in this

area is often described as “punky to crumbly” due to its nature of deposit. The rock either

flowed into the ocean and cooled quickly or were pyroclastics (air fall) that resulted in

variable weathered, fragmented pieces of volcanics. The basalt rock is generally dark

gray to black, of varying hardness, and with interbeds of siltstone, claystone, and

sandstone.

In the Nehalem and Cascade Head areas of the coast, the rock is the “pillow”

nature where the basalt lava flowed into the ocean, cooling quickly. The result is that

pillow basalts weather and break down into the very red soils that typically form a “rind”

over the harder basalt flows. These soils can be clay rich and tens of feet thick, creating

overburden thicknesses that can be difficult to work with. Where large thicknesses of

overburden occur in steep terrain, there is a potential for landslides as a result of the

mining process. These areas can also place downslope streams in danger of siltation. The

Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) requires detailed

overburden management plans in order to protect against landslides initiated as part of

the mining process.

“Brecciated” basalt occurs in the Astoria to Cannon Beach area. These are very

angular and shattered blocks that are a result of the rock being thrust up from the sea

floor, mixed with sediments and cooled quickly. The physical pressures on the rock result

in a relatively soft, erodable rock that does not produce a high-quality aggregate. These

brecciated rocks are underlain by claystone that form weak deposits, which may result in

large landslides.

Central Coast Resources

The central coastal areas, such as the Neskowin area, consist of sandstones and

siltstones that have been intruded by volcanic rock in the form of “sills” and “dikes.”

These two structures essentially describe the nature of when the basalt is intruded into the

surrounding bedrock, becoming a sill, which is generally horizontal, or a dike that is near

vertical. These form good-quality rock resources; however, they occur sporadically and

may not be continuous. These sills and dikes are sometimes underlain by softer soils,

which when eroded result in landslides that include the upper rock resources. This is a

further example of the need for resource management and mine planning to avoid slope

failures.

South Coast Resources

The southern portion of the coast is considered a “mélange,” or a mixing of

geologic deposits. There is highly variable rock in the south coast area, ranging from the

soft serpentines to dense, isolated bodies of intruded igneous rock (amphiboles and

diorites). A good example is the volcanic rock in Gold Beach, which was used to

construct most of the jetties in the harbor. The bedrock deposits have been highly altered

due to the tectonic processes of mixing the rock types. Due to the high pressures and

temperatures, the rock has been partially to totally transformed into different material

than when it first formed. There is limited opportunity to find high-quality aggregate in

schists (suitable for jetty stone and rip-rap), scattered volcanic intrusives, and other

marginally suitable volcanic bedrock. Additionally, alluvial gravels are mined in the

Umpqua River, a source of high-quality aggregate.

Landslides on the Coast

There is a natural process that has resulted in massive landslides along the entire

coast. Landslides have typically occurred on oversteepened slopes where resistant basalt

flows are underlain by weak siltstone and claystone. Mining of basalts in landslide or

marginally stable landslide terrain can lead to slope failures that can severely impact the

mining operation. Geologic mapping of the site will aid in the design of a mine plan,

greatly reducing the potential for landslides.

Recent reactivation of portions of massive landslides has affected major roads

along the coast. In addition, roads have settled due to fill failures under the roads. As

Oregon continues through these wet cycles, additional failures can be expected in roads

along the coast. To date, this has created additional pressure for high-quality aggregate

resources for road reconstruction and fill materials. This also creates pressure for higher

specifications and engineering for future roadways, adding to aggregate needs.

Aggregate Demands

In 1995, DOGAMI prepared a study titled “An Economic Analysis of

Construction Aggregate Markets and the Results of a Long-Term Forecasting Model for

Oregon.” The study evaluated the long-range forecast of aggregate needs for each county

through 2050. The major findings of this study, pertinent to the Oregon coast, include the

following.

• The per capita aggregate consumption tends to be much higher in rural areas (such as

the majority of the coast) than in cities. Roads in rural areas use more aggregate per

mile of road due to the sparse amount of roads serving a large area.

• Construction utilizing poor-quality aggregate will require more maintenance and

more aggregate use in the long run.

• Clatsop, Coos, and Curry counties are forecasted to have the highest consumption

growth rate due to development of primarily residential and commercial sites. The

other coastal counties will need aggregate predominantly for public and private road

construction.

• Other economic factors impacting development of coastal aggregate resources

include the shortage of high-quality aggregate sites, shipping costs in terms of travel

time and coastal traffic congestion, and the distance from the aggregate resource to

the place of use.

River Mining on the Coast

In 1972, DOGAMI and our past state geologist, Dr. John Beaulieu, recognized the

need to stay in the rivers and floodplains for mining aggregate. DOGAMI saw an

opportunity to encourage mining the bars and the floodplains to protect adjacent

farmlands from erosion and loss of valuable farmland as gravel built up in the rivers. At

that same time, environmental concerns strongly shifted, forcing gravel operations out of

the rivers and into quarries. However, there were and still are limited quarries along the

coast with high-quality aggregate.

There is limited dredging in rivers along the coast today, and very limited mining

in the floodplains. Certainly part of that is the nature of the aggregate deposit; however,

there are rivers and floodplains that could be mined, taking into consideration the

fisheries and water quality factors. The quality of the quarry rock on the coast is variable,

and in some places it is all that is available. However, there is the opportunity to design

mine sites in the bars and the floodplains, resulting in enhancement of the existing habitat

for wildlife and fisheries.

Summary

The variable nature of rock on the coast has led to limited aggregate sites. The

continuing development on the coast is resulting in mine operators looking for high-

quality resources that can be permitted under the land-use process. Where the quality or

quantity of the resource is limited, the current land-use processes will allow for

permitting of these sites. Identification of these sites will require detailed, site-specific

geologic studies to define the limits of the resource. In addition, there are opportunities

such as creative designs for mining in the rivers, associated bars, and floodplains,

recognizing the benefits of habitat creation and availability of high-quality aggregates

close to the market.

References

Beaulieu, John. 1993, Environmental Geology of Inland Tillamook and Clatsop Counties,

Oregon, 1973, Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries Bulletin 79.

Corcoran. 1973, Environmental Geology of Lincoln County, Oregon, Oregon Department

of Geology and Mineral Industries.

Corcoran. 1975, Environmental Geology of Western Coos and Douglas Counties,

Oregon, Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, Bulletin 87.

Niem, Alan, Tom Horning, and Paul See. 2004, Field Trip to Geology of Hug Point State

Park, North Coast Land Conservancy.

Schlicker and Deacon. 1974, Environmental Geology of Coastal Lane County, Oregon,

Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, Bulletin 85.

Schlicker, Gray and Ramp. 1977, Geology, Mineral Resources and Rock Material of

Curry County, Oregon, Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries,

Bulletin 93.

Snavely, MacLeod, Wagner, and Rau. 1976,Geologic Map of the Cape Foulweather and

Euchre Mountain Quadrangles, US Geological Survey Misc. Investigation Series,

MAP I-868.

Wells, Snavely, MacLeod, Kelly, and Parker. 1994, Geologic Map of the Tillamook

Highlands, Northwest Oregon Coast Range, US Geological Survey Open File Report

94-21.


Use of Alluvial Gravels, Harvest Techniques, and Economics

Bill Yokum

Freeman Rock Inc.

http://www.freemanrock.com/

It is impossible to build a city without sand, gravel, and crushed rock. The

average new house consumes 229 tons of aggregate. As a society, we consume

approximately 3.4 billion tons of aggregate annually. Round rock supplies 40% of this

demand. To visualize the 10 tons of aggregate used for each person in the United States

each year, imagine stopping by your local home supply center to pick up a 50-pound bag

of landscaping rock every day of the week for 365 days. At the end of one year you’d still

be 35 bags short1. One of the major uses of round rock is for the production of concrete,

because angular or quarry rock is not very compatible with the conventional concrete

pumps, and finishers have difficulties with the workability of quarry rock.

Dredging of the shipping lanes is a form of aggregate removal. This type of

removal has not provided any significant amount of supply toward our demand. In the

southern Oregon coastal area, the current dredge of choice is the Corps of Engineers

(COE) Yaquina. The Yaquina is a hopper dredge that sucks up loose sand and gravel. Six

inches is the maximum size up that can be removed. In 2005 the Chetco removed 29,005

cubic yards (cy) at a cost of $256,500 or $8.84/cy. Also in 2005, the Rogue removed

6,796 cy at a cost of $270,000 or $39.73/cy. The increased cost is attributed to the

weather and rough bar conditions.2

Importing sand and gravel is an alternative to local production. Today LaFarge is

moving barges loaded with sand and gravel off our Pacific Coast. They are leaving

British Columbia and heading for customers in Washington and California. The Polaris

Minerals Corporation is exclusively focused on the development of construction

aggregate resources in British Columbia for marine transport to urban markets on the

West Coast. Currently they are developing the Orca Quarry on Vancouver Island and

constructing the Richmond Terminal in San Francisco Bay area.3 These markets are

experiencing a growing local supply deficit of construction aggregates, caused by a

number of social, political, and environmental reasons.

In the past, conventional bar removal was done with a front-end loader and dump

trucks. Then the scraper became the tool of choice because it could remove small lifts

(e.g., six inches) with each pass. This reduced the amount of time needed to prepare the

site for the fall rains. The cost for this type of removal is approximately $1.50/cy, plus a

royalty cost to the Department of State Lands and an administrative cost of 10%.4

Bar trenching is a technique used to develop diversity of habitat in addition to

removing sand and gravel. This operation normally uses an excavator and dump trucks.

When the trench is completed and the trench sediment has settled, then the downriver

side is breeched. With the start of the fall rains, Mother Nature breeches the inlet.

1 William H. Langer, Lawrence J Drew, and Janet S. Sachs. 2004. Aggregates and the Environment.

2 John H. Craig, USCOE, Coos Bay. March 2006. The Yaquina and Dredging. E-Mail to Bill Yocum.

3 Aggregate Research Institute. April 3, 2006. Polaris Begins Construction of the Orca Quarry.

4 Ted Freeman Jr., Freeman Rock Inc. April 2006. Conversation with Bill Yocum.

Shallow trenches in the Chetco have initially created habitat for stickleback fish, whereas

the deeper trenches provide a resting area for chinook salmon. The cost of trenching is

about a $1.00/cy more than conventional bar removal, with the administrative cost

increasing to 12%.4

Flood-plain mining sites are located in areas of historic river flow commonly

known as the 100-year flood plain. Removal can be accomplished by a combination of

scraper, excavator, dragline, and dump trucks. These sites are under the jurisdiction of the

Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industry (DOGAMI) and are classified as

non-renewable resources. Removal of a non-renewable resource requires a reclamation

plan. The normal reclamation plan is to leave a freshwater pond. The cost for this type of

removal is approximately $2.50/cy, with an administrative cost of 12%.4

During 1996 and 1997, Oregon experienced flooding on a scale not seen in many

years. Some gravel pits located near rivers experienced erosion. In several cases,

breaches occurred between the gravel pit and the river. Initial evaluation of several sites

(e.g., the Green Pit on the McKenzie River) that experienced these breaches showed that

impacts to the river system were complex and varied significantly from site to site. The

impacts to the adjacent river system may be viewed as positive and negative. Several

flood-plain mining sites in Oregon located in areas of historic river flow reverted to

active riverbeds.5

Future opportunities include using the sand and gravel industry as a tool to

develop habitat in the flood plain and our estuaries. One possibility could include the

utilization of the dredged material that is currently being hauled and dumped on the ocean

floor.

Another example is what Freeman Rock is working toward on Elephant Bar, on

the Rogue River operations. The Rogue River is the second-largest drainage in Oregon

and has one of the smallest estuaries, with a head of tide only four miles from the river

mouth. The Rogue River supports world-renowned salmon and steelhead fisheries,

including the federally threatened coho salmon, as well as various other marine and

freshwater species. There is no doubt that the best reclamation option for a flood-plain

mining site in this area is to benefit estuarine resources. Yet there is very little

documented information about what works and what does not work when restoring an

estuary, and even less information on river-dominated estuarine systems such as the

Rogue River’s. Freeman Rock Inc. sees the opportunity for research to help document

what types of design activities best improve the estuary ecosystem of the Rogue River.

The Lower Rogue Watershed Council recently acquired an Oregon Watershed

Enhancement Board (OWEB) grant to collect some base-line data.

Either way, our society has increasing demands for sand and gravel. We need to

decide where that future supply is going to come from and how we plan to manage the

resources. Will our supply be local and include habitat restoration, will it be from

imports, or will it be a combination of both?

5 E. F. Schnitzer, P. J. Wampler, and S. R. Mamoyac. Floodplain aggregate mining in western Oregon.

Mining Engineering, Vol. 51, No. 12, Dec. 1999.

Using In-stream Gravel Extraction Methods

to Restore or Enhance Habitat

Dennis Halligan


Eureka, California

In-stream aggregate extraction is known to result in some level of degradation to

aquatic habitats (Kondolf 1998, Kondolf 1997, OWRRI 1995, Pauley et al. 1989). The

degree of impact typically varies depending on the existing regulatory programs, permit

conditions, site-specific characteristics of the extraction location, and harvest methods. In

many cases, traditional harvesting methods and one-size-fits-all permit conditions have

resulted in loss of topographic variability within extraction areas and a commensurate

loss of aquatic habitat complexity. As regulations, monitoring programs, and harvest

techniques continue to evolve, government agencies and companies are gaining a better

understanding of how to minimize or mitigate impacts, and in some cases, enhance

riverine environments.

Extraction planning that considers locations of sensitive habitats, species life-

history requirements, and river processes is key to developing site-specific harvesting

techniques that could be used to enhance aquatic habitats and fish migratory passage,

restore riparian areas, and control erosion. Some experimental techniques currently in use

in northwestern California include oxbow and alcove excavation, migration channel

construction, development of low-elevation riparian seedbeds, and bio-engineered

erosion control.

Habitat Enhancement Techniques

Oxbow Extraction

Naturally formed oxbows are abandoned meander bends that tend to flood during

winter runoff events and may or may not retain a connection with the low-flow main

river channel. On aerial photographs they generally appear to be narrow (average low-

flow channel width or less), muted secondary channels that may be bordered by riparian

vegetation. They are used by juvenile salmonids as winter rearing areas, especially during

high-flow events. During the summer, juvenile salmonids that remain in the oxbows can

usually find ample food resources, stratified water temperatures, and protection from

predators. In-stream aggregate operations can be used to excavate oxbows that could

provide high-quality habitat for salmonids. As they are currently planned on the Mad and

Russian rivers, oxbow extractions will be located on the downstream two-thirds of a

gravel bar to minimize channel capture. Oxbow extractions located below the two-year

floodplain terrace may be open to the main channel during winter base flows. Large

woody debris and/or patches of riparian vegetation that may be removed from the

adjacent extraction area could be placed within or alongside the oxbows to provide cover

components. The resultant oxbows would likely provide high-quality off-channel

salmonid habitat for several years or more, until natural filling may occur due to low-

frequency flood events.

Alcove Extraction

Alcoves are typically formed at the downstream end of gravel bars through

scouring action of eddies or where high-flow secondary channels or tributaries enter the

main channel. This type of habitat feature provides a velocity refuge for adult and

juvenile salmonids during high flows and potential thermal refuge for juvenile salmonids

during the summer season. Alcove extractions are also located on the downstream end of

gravel bars. Like oxbows, alcove extractions can be irregularly shaped to avoid

disturbance of riparian vegetation and shall have an opening to the low-flow channel on

the downstream end that would allow free movement of fish in and out of the mainstem.

Excavation below the water surface elevation allows for cool water inflow from

groundwater seepage through the gravel bar. Alcoves are small in area and produce much

smaller volume of aggregate when compared to other extraction methods. The operator

will generally lose money on this type of excavation if it is conducted as a stand-alone

extraction. However, an operator would typically excavate an alcove when equipment is

already staged on the gravel bar for a more traditional type of operation. In that case it

would break even, from a monetary standpoint.

Dry Bar Trenching

Dry bar trenches are linear excavations of variable length, width, and depth that

are constructed on gravel bars away from the low-flow channel. This technique has been

chosen by companies in cooperation with National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and

California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), with the intention of minimizing the

potential for stranding, facilitating upstream and downstream salmonid migration,

creating a single-thread channel with holding pools, and providing an economical return

on the companies’ investment. It should be noted that dry-bar trenches in an aggraded

delta area may be subject to relatively rapid filling and provide only seasonal benefits for

salmonids. This technique can be used to create migration passage for the critical late fall

through spring season when adult salmonids are migrating upstream and smolts are

making their way to the ocean.

High Flood Skim

There is a number of areas along rivers that appear incapable of being colonized

by riparian vegetation, even though they have not been subject to gravel harvesting. For

instance, where undisturbed gravel bars are more than one meter above low water, the

bars may remain largely unvegetated because seedlings that become established there are

likely to die from desiccation, by virtue of the depth to water table during the dry summer

and fall (Kondolf 1998). Other areas that are too low may have adequate water but may

be scoured by the hydraulic force and bedload transport. In a third example, such as the

Alexander Valley reach of the Russian River, many areas within the floodplains are

infested with giant reed (Arundo donax). Extensive Arundo infestation prevents native

vegetation development, requires five times more water than native vegetation, and

provides very little habitat for indigenous fauna. In such circumstances, the habitat for

fish and vegetative species can be improved by adjusting the top of the bar to create

shallow water table conditions in which native vegetation can establish and subsequently

supply habitat for a variety of flora and fauna. Kondolf (1998) reported that lowering the

top of the bar away from the zone of scour may create shallow water table conditions in

which willows can establish. Other methods for restoring gravel bars that may be too

high relative to the water table can be very expensive and possibly include hand removal

of exotic plants, long-term herbicide treatment, tarping of individual plants or groups of

plants, revegetation, and irrigation programs. Rather, the best method for restoration in

certain instances may prove to be the use a gravel harvesting technique called a high

floodplain skim. This method would lower the surface elevations of the floodplain,

permit backwatering, and promote seedbed development.

The high floodplain skim, coupled with a directed planting program, can be used

to relatively rapidly restore an area with appropriate native species. In general, this

technique extracts gravel from the five-year or higher floodplain adjacent to the channel.

The extraction area typically reaches 2,000 to 3,000 cfs discharge elevation in such a way

as to promote backwatering and fine-sediment deposition. The skimmed floor should

have a downstream gradient equal to that of the river, and a 0.5% cross slope to minimize

stranding potential. This type of extraction is expected to foster riparian vegetation

development and succession processes by creating a suitable seed bed that is at a low

enough elevation so seedling roots can gain access to summer groundwater. Notably, this

type of extraction renders the site unsuitable for future mining, due to the deposition of

fine sediment and development of riparian vegetation. Another consideration is that the

cost can be higher than the typical skimming operation, due to the need to properly

dispose of non-native vegetation (if present), revegetation, and monitoring of the site.

However, extracted volumes may be comparable to more traditional techniques, thus

making this method cost-effective.

Benefits to Erosion Control

Many river reaches in the Pacific Northwest have been confined by levees for

flood control purposes. Over the past couple of decades, government entities charged

with maintaining flood capacity between the levees have had an increasingly difficult

time obtaining permits to maintain their channels. In many rivers, this has resulted in

increases in bed and bar elevations, losses of floodwater conveyance, creation of chute

channels, and levee erosion. For instance, the Russian River (California) has experienced

deteriorating levees in several locations, which has led to emergency actions that have

included placement of full rock slope protection. The result was a significant loss of fish

and riparian habitat. In another instance, Shamrock Materials identified an at-risk levee in

the Alexander Valley reach of the Russian River, within their permitted area, and sought

a different solution, providing the following case study that combines levee erosion

control, flood capacity maintenance, and gravel harvesting.

Shamrock’s “LP Bar” is located between two levees and was extracted by a

previous operator down to wet sand in 1989. In the years between 1989 and 2002, the bar

rebuilt itself to its original height, crowned in the center, had about 50 percent scrub and

sapling riparian vegetation coverage, and developed a relatively high-gradient chute

channel along the west levee. High flows in the chute channel eroded a section of the

levee approximately 900 feet long by 30 to 50 feet wide. Shamrock proposed a plan to

harvest the bar, transplant riparian vegetation, and halt erosion of the levee. The final

plan was developed in consultation with the California Department of Fish and Game and

the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Implementation of the project began with removing the top two to three feet of

bar surface, containing riparian scrub, organic duff, and fine sediment. This material was

deposited in the chute channel to build its elevation and serve as a planting medium.

Cottonwood sapling trunks were placed in four- to five-foot-deep augered holes at the

heads of two chute channels, to help create debris jams. Forty-two siltation baffles that

consisted of cottonwood and willow cuttings were then constructed downstream of the

“logjams,” perpendicular to the direction of flow. Willow stakes were planted

downstream of the baffles. The site was irrigated using a water truck several times a day

for the first summer season. Subsequent high-flow events, including one in January of

2006 that was estimated to be a 30- to 35-year flood, have washed over the restored chute

channel, depositing fine sediment and resulting in a viable seedbed. Annual grasses have

become established, the baffles continue to sprout, the logjam has trapped debris as

expected, erosion of the levee has halted, and two harvests of aggregate have occurred.

Conclusions

These various methodologies show that it is possible to reduce the amount of

impact to riverine habitats and provide some measure of benefit to aquatic and terrestrial

species through creative extraction planning and permitting flexibility. The monetary

gain to the aggregate company to conduct these types of “restorative” excavations is

typically less than more traditional harvesting techniques, due to the relatively lower

volume of material produced, countered by the requisite amount of planning and

equipment costs associated with any extraction operation. However, heavy-equipment

staging costs can be reduced or eliminated via coordinated planning and implementing

restorative treatments, in conjunction with other harvesting activities, to maintain a

reasonable return margin. Companies can also profit socially from the benefits associated

with marketing innovative, proactive, and restorative methods in gravel mining.

Everyone wins with these types of extraction operations. Fish and other aquatic or

riparian-dependent species benefit from development of alcoves, oxbows, migration

channels, and bio-engineered erosion-control projects. Operators benefit because they are

proactively enhancing habitat, which reflects their concern about river conditions and the

species that live there. The companies are also able to further minimize or mitigate

potential impacts with minimal cost. Public perception of in-stream extraction operations

could improve, especially if local newspapers pick up the story. These types of projects

help move society closer toward achieving multiple common objectives: (1) the recovery

and delisting of salmon and steelhead trout; (2) continuation of an industry that provides

a valuable commodity, providing stability to buyers and suppliers down the line; and (3)

the continuation of employment that generates skilled labor and high-paying jobs in

mostly rural areas.

References

Kondolf, G. M. 1997. Hungry water: effects of dams and gravel mining on river

channels. Environmental Management 21(4):533–551.

Kondolf, G. M. 1998. Environmental effects of aggregate extraction from river channels

and floodplains. In Aggregate Resources: a Global Perspective. P. Bobrosky (ed.),

Balkema, Rotterdam. Pp. 113–129.

Oregon Water Resources Research Institute. 1995. Gravel disturbance impacts on salmon

habitat and stream health. Volume II: Technical Background. Prepared for Oregon

Division of State Lands. Oregon State University.

Pauley, G. B., G. L. Thomas, D. A. Marino, and D. C. Weigand. 1989. Evaluation of the

effects of gravel bar scalping on juvenile salmonids in the Puyallup River drainage.

Final report to the Washington Dept. of Fisheries. Service Contract #1620. University

of Washington.

Gravel Mining and Salmonid Habitat

Brian Cluer and Anne Mullan

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – National Marine Fisheries Service

(NOAA - NMFS)

Appropriate sizes of sediment, usually in the range of gravel, are needed for all

salmonid life history stages. Sediment availability interacts with channelization, revetments,

dams, and disconnected floodplains in addition to gravel mining impacts. In Oregon,

approximately 5% of total aggregate is mined from in-river deposits, but these are often the

same as essential fish habitat areas. The scale of effects is beyond that of most monitoring

activities and exceeds data collection to date. These effects are both long lasting and at large

spatial scales, many kilometers downstream of the mining site.

There are legal mandates for NMFS to review gravel extraction in essential fish

habitat and endangered species habitat, with a requirement that the final actions avoid,

minimize, or, where avoidance and minimization are not possible, provide compensatory

mitigation of adverse impacts to anadromous fishes and their habitats. The relevant laws are

shown in Table 1. As part of this responsibility, NMFS has created or assisted with

preparation of guidance documents (Table 2). All of these guidance documents are based on

scientific literature. They synthesize flow hydraulics and sediment transport, and address

connections between habitat, geomorphic features, and physical processes. All were

reviewed by external and agency peer scientists and by public and industry representatives,

and underwent agency legal reviews as well. All have extensive reference sections for further

examination.

The range of gravel mining effects is summarized in a table from the NOAA

Fisheries Southwest Region (SWR) Sediment Removal guidelines (Table 3), showing the

links between the mining elements, physical effects, and habitat consequences for salmonid

habitat. Effects range from those altering the formation and maintenance of pool-riffle

complexes and off-channel habitat, to channel and water quality degradation. A common

thread is reduced habitat complexity. Related effects can include loss of vegetation and wood

debris at the site and downstream. Many of these change nutrient inputs and stream

productivity, with consequent impacts on rearing fish. Operational effects include pollution

from processing, equipment, traffic, and access roads resulting in impacts on banks and the

instream corridor. Where there are instream crossings, fine inputs may occur during the

stressful low-flow season.

Physical processes that are key to functioning bars are cross-section confinement and

continuity of flow. This is expressed in the flow continuity equation: Q1 = Q2.

Flow Q = A x V;

where A= area, and V = velocity. Increasing channel width, or cross-sectional area, leads to

decreasing velocity, which in turn decreases sediment transport substantially since transport

is a function of V. Bed material is expected deposit adjacent to mined areas. Fines can

become more prevalent adjacent to mined bars because the coarse, “armored,” surface layer

is removed, reducing the grain size available for transport.

Some examples of short-term impacts are pools filled in on the Russian River in

northern California after high-flow (two-year) events on a reach mined annually since 1997.

In the same watershed, the smaller Austin Creek has become wider and shallower after

decades of mining. Longer-term impacts arise due to the interplay of climate and gravel

delivery events. The disturbance frequency of climate events does not match that of most

mining actions. For instance, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-induced flooding

events vary with latitude, becoming less frequent farther north on the California coast. While

they occur every few years in southern California rivers, they are more likely to occur only

every few decades farther north. These larger flood events are able to move large amounts of

sediment, replacing mined bars from upstream sources (although in so doing, the downstream

bars are left without). Mining has the potential to disturb stream channels and habitat more

frequently than large flood events and for periods of time exceeding recovery. It is common

that bars are mined annually or several times per decade. In the Smith River near the Oregon

and California border, after repeated mining, bar head incision has occurred, with little if any

subsequent deposition since 1997.

In an example of productive cooperation, the Bohan and Canelis family operation in

Austin Creek has evolved after 50 years to a new habitat-improvement process. There are

multiple state and federal partners. Some habitat limitations include poor low-flow channel

definition and shallow pools. Pools and the low-flow channel dried up in summer as the bed

elevation is above the summer water table. Poor hydrologic connectivity leads to poor fish

access in the early runoff season. The solutions being implemented now include not scalping

the bars, retaining bar form to the greatest extent possible, excavating gravel from alcoves

and pools, and installing both large pieces of wood that induce scouring and rocks in pools.

Results after three years show (1) deepening of pools, (2) deepening of the low flow channel,

and (3) increasing topographic complexity between the bar tops and pool bottoms. The year

2005 was the first in decades that surface flow persisted throughout the low-flow season.

More importantly, the family business has transitioned from obtaining its aggregates

primarily from the stream to a nearby rock quarry. By investing in their own materials

processing research, they learned how to make PCC aggregate, including sand (the highest

standard), from the ubiquitous Franciscan mélange formation, found along coastal California

and Oregon.

In the Willamette River, one instream mining operation is phasing out of actions in

the active channel. The Joe Bernert Towing Company family operation has received local

approval for a large floodplain operation that will recreate connectivity along the incised

river. The floodplain will provide a complex mosaic of side channel and seasonally

connected shallow surfaces and wetlands. When segments are completed, they will revert to

wetlands known to be present historically before farming. Other areas will provide a link to

the river, so that overtopping events will not strand fish. The overall depth will not exceed

that of the adjacent river, so that any potential avulsion events will not be excessively

harmful.

The key to avoiding harmful mining in salmonid habitat is offered by innovative

approaches that allow the realization of regulatory goals. Some forms of mining can enhance

stream habitat, and as aggregate is available from many sources, it is important to seek those

that avoid and minimize long-term impacts. Recovering species listed under the Endangered

Species Act requires improved habitat, not increasing or promoting degradation.

Table 1. Federal laws providing NMFS jurisdiction for review of gravel mining effects.

Law Summary of role in review of federal actions

Endangered Species

Act (ESA)

This law is to ensure that the ecosystems upon which endangered or threatened

species depend may be conserved and to provide a program for the conservation of

such endangered and threatened species. Federal actions that may affect ESA-listed

species or their critical habitat require consultation under Section 7, while Section 9

prohibits take and Section 10 provides for certain exemptions from take

prohibitions.

Clean Water Act

(CWA)

Pursuant to Section 404 of the CWA, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)

permit is required for the discharge or dredged or fill material into a water of the

U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Corps regard the use of

mechanized earth-moving equipment to conduct landclearing, ditching,

channelization, in-stream mining, or other earth-moving activity in the United

States as resulting in a discharge of dredged material, unless project-specific

evidence shows that the activity results in only incidental fallback (33 CFR 323.2).

Fish and Wildlife

Coordination Act

(FWCA)

NMFS, Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), and heads of appropriate state agencies

may provide comments to the USACE as to the potential adverse effects to wildlife

resources, including fish, that may occur as a result of permits issued and

recommend methods for avoiding such impacts.

National

Environmental

Policy Act (NEPA)

NEPA requires agencies to analyze the potential effects of a proposed federal action

that would significantly affect the human environment. It specifically requires

agencies to use a systematic, interdisciplinary approach in planning and decision-

making, to ensure that presently unquantified environmental values may be given

appropriate consideration, and to provide detailed statements on the environmental

impacts of proposed actions including: (1) any adverse impacts; (2) alternatives to

the proposed action; and (3) the relationship between short-term uses and long-term

productivity. The alternatives analysis allows other reasonable options to be

considered.

Rivers and Harbors

Act of 1899, § 10

This prohibits the unauthorized obstruction or alteration of any navigable water of

the United States. Construction, excavation, or deposition of materials or any other

work affecting the course, location, condition, or capacity of any navigable water

requires Department of Army authorization. Section 10 jurisdictional authority

extends over waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide shoreward to the mean

high-water mark, presently used or used in the past or susceptible to use to transport

interstate or foreign commerce.

Magnuson-Stevens

Fishery

Conservation and

Management Act

(MSA)

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, first passed in

1976 and amended in 1996, is the primary legislation governing marine fisheries in

the United States. The re-authorization of the MSA included a provision for

Essential Fish Habitat (EFH). The act states: "One of the greatest long-term threats

to the viability of commercial and recreational fisheries is the continuing loss of

marine, estuarine, and other aquatic habitats." The definition of EFH in the

legislation covers: “those waters and substrate necessary to fish for spawning,

breeding, feeding, or growth to maturity.” The legislation mandates that NMFS and

the Councils implement a process for conserving and protecting EFH, including a

requirement to comment on activities proposed by federal action agencies that may

adversely impact areas designated as EFH, and further review of decisions

inconsistent with a conservation recommendation.

Table 2. Guidance documents prepared for gravel mining.

Document Online link

NMFS National Gravel

Extraction Guidance

(2005)

nmfs.noaa.gov/habitat/habi

tatprotection/anadfish/inde

x4.htm. See 2005 Gravel

Guidance (pdf)

Reviews the effects and provides

recommendations for avoidance,

minimization, and mitigation

NMFS SWR Sediment

Removal Guidelines to

NOAA Fisheries Staff in

California; Used in

evaluating Sediment

Removal Actions

swr.nmfs.noaa.gov/

(find guidelines under

Items of Interest)

Detailed coverage of effects and

some alternative actions to avoid

or minimize

Sediment Removal From

Active Stream Channels

in Oregon (2006)

www.fws.gov/oregonfwo/

News/GravelMining.asp

Oregon-specific, with more-

detailed recommendations on

alternatives to bar mining and

monitoring

Table 3. Summary of effects: instream sediment removal, and implications for salmonid

habitat. (From the SWR sediment removal guidelines.) Element of Instream

Sediment Removal

Physical Effect Possible Consequence for Salmonid

Habitat

Propagates stream degradation both

upstream and downstream from

removal site.

Loss or reduction in quality of pool and

riffle habitats.

Scour of upstream riffles. Lower success of spawning redds.

Reduced pool areas. Loss of spawning and rearing habitat.

Bed surface armoring.

Scour or burial of armor layer.

Removal of sand and gravel

from a location or from a

limited reach.

Surface caking or pore clogging.

Lower quality of spawning and rearing

habitat; changes to invertebrate

community.

Loss of sand and gravel from

neighboring bars.

Loss of riffle and pool habitats.

Wider, more uniform channel section,

less lateral variation in depth, reduced

prominence of the pool-riffle sequence.

Removal of sand and gravel

from a bar.

Surface caking or pore clogging.

More difficult adult and juvenile migration.

Reduced trophic food production. Lower

quality of rearing habitat.

Channel degradation. Deeper, narrower channel. Dewatered

back channels and wetlands.

Lower groundwater table. Reduction of summer low flows;

reduction of water recharge to off-

channel habitat.

Complex channels regress to single-

thread channels.

Less habitat complexity.

Armoring of channel bed, may lead to

erosion of banks and bars.

Removal of sediment in

excess of the input.

Or, scour or burial of armor layer.

Less spawning area. Reduced water

quality. Prompt new bank protection

works—reducing habitat.

Induced meandering of stream to

reduce gradient. Erosion on alternate

banks downstream.

Reduced sediment supply to

downstream.

Armoring of bed, or scour of armor

layer.

Reduced riparian vegetation. Increased

local sedimentation. Prompt new bank

protection works. Propagate river

management and habitat losses

downstream.

Reduce shade. Increase water temperature in inland,

narrow rivers.

Decrease channel structure from wood. Reduce cover; reduce number and depth

of pools; reduce area of spawning gravel;

limit channel stability.

Removal of vegetation and

woody debris from bar and

bank.

Decrease drop-in food, nutrient inputs. Decrease stream productivity.

In-stream Gravel Extraction Symposium

Panel Discussion: Day 2, April 13, 2006

Facilitators: Guillermo Giannico and Jim Waldvogel

Panelists: Rich Angstrom, Michael Church, Brian Cluer, Dennis Halligan, Jeff Johnson, Peter

Klingeman, Dorian Kuper, Robert MacArthur, Anne Mullan, Ron Rathburn, and Bill

Yocum.

Peter Klingeman (to the Symposium audience): We would like your feedback on the program

that we have put together for this Symposium. What particular areas need more emphasis than

were given, or were over looked and should have been included? (No response.) Was it done so

perfectly that it covered everything?

So your comment is, and I’m doing this for the sake of the recorder, that some of the

presentations were very broad and general and the real meat of the monitoring information was

compressed into the last third of the Symposium and there was a substantial amount of

information yet to be covered. My reaction would be to charge Bob MacArthur with ensuring

that his write-up gets into the proceedings from this Symposium.

Robert MacArthur: I could write an entire book on how to do monitoring.

Peter Klingeman: So monitoring could be a follow-up topic for another Symposium?

Robert MacArthur: I think it would be wonderful to have a session that would address

monitoring but also provide the opportunity to do some real life demonstrations of five or six of

the actual monitoring practices. I think there is a great deal of benefit to having a little classroom

discussion, some show and tell on some things, followed by a trip to the lab to look at what a

shaker table and some hydrometer points actually look like. After the lab trip, let’s get some

actual field experience to see how monitoring equipment really works, and what we as

hydrologists and geomorphologists really do. I think it would be a wonderful opportunity. A

second part of that might be to learn the chemical and biological aspects of monitoring. For

example, what are the challenges to doing mobile temperature monitoring and hemocline

assessment? Great idea, thank you.

Peter Klingeman: Just a quick show of hands, how many of you get involved in monitoring at

some point in you work? About two-thirds of the audience is involved in monitoring. Good.

Guillermo Giannico: Perhaps this is obvious, but this was the first Gravel Extraction

Symposium we at OSU Extension organized, so we felt the need to accommodate a broad

audience. Twenty-five or thirty percent of the audience is composed of watershed council

members. There is a lot of variability within the councils as to the level of technical training, so

we needed to bring an audience with an extremely variable understanding of gravel extraction

issues to some common understanding of the general subject. Therefore, we knew there were

going to be times during which the most experienced people in these topics were going to be

napping, while at other times the so called “beginners” were going to be a bit lost thinking that

some of the information was going over their heads. However, I clearly understand that there is a

need for more technical training in this area, and we hope to address that need through future

Extension activities.

Peter Klingeman: Perhaps in future meetings we could enrich the information base by

addressing the planning perspective in more depth, bringing in better and more detailed examples

of mitigation and reclamation activities. We could talk about these examples not only from the

regulatory point of view, but from the point of view of the people who have to carry out that

work, whether they are industry people or consultants hired by the industry. Did I cover enough

of what you had in mind to get it into the record?

Someone from the audience just asked for our perspective on gravel mining as a

floodplain flooding control tool, and its role in reducing impacts of such flooding on the fishery

resources. Who among the panel members might like to answer?

Dennis Halligan: I think that any kind of project, whether its flood control, gravel mining, or

erosion control, needs to have pretty precise, specific, planning involved. I wouldn’t say that

gravel mining is the end-all, be-all for flood control, but if you are able to identify critical areas

where increasing the channel capacity may lower the water surface elevation to reduce flooding

in an area that perhaps floods a lot, that would probably be something that would be within your

tool box to look at. However, if you are out in the middle of a meandering system with little

development on either side, I would not put it there. Alternatively, if you are in an urban

situation where you are getting flooding and increasing bed elevations, perhaps this would be an

area to remove gravel to increase channel capacity. So I think it is something that has to be fairly

site specific.

I am currently working on a couple of projects, and one of them is the installation of a

terrace pit in California. One of the things we are looking at is increasing channel capacity in a

creek because right now it overtops and has the potential to overtop into a proposed gravel pit.

The creek has a u-shaped channel, is down-cut, and there is a lot of development upstream so

there is not much sediment transport because of all the impermeable surfaces. We are going to be

creating a miniature flood plain and then laying it back and planting a bunch of riparian

vegetation to reduce the overtopping in that one location. We are doing the same out on the river.

We are going to extend the flood plain to help improve channel capacity. So, there are ways you

can increase channel capacity by extracting the gravel and still get habitat benefits. I am working

on another project where we are actually removing thirty-three houses, and another fourteen

acres of vineyard, and recreating a hundred-year flood plain that would work great as a gravel

extraction project. So, projects can’t be accomplished with gravel extraction everywhere, but are

very site specific.

Question: How is something like that financed?

Dennis Halligan: For the terrace pit, the gravel operator is financing the whole thing. Napa

County ended up passing a one-half percent sales tax levy in order to improve flood control

along the Napa River, and the house removal and floodplain reestablishment project is financed

by that fund plus some additional state funding.

Brian Cluer: On the scale of a gravel mine, the scale of a few bars let’s say, you can increase

the cross–sectional area and the storage volume in that reach of the stream. However, that does

nothing to increase stream capacity. Capacity is controlled entirely by the downstream

hydraulics. In fact, if you open up a few bars to increase the capacity, or the storage in that reach,

you are likely to induce sedimentation and lose all that capacity in a flood anyway.

Question: What have been the actual effects on fish habitat of the flooding that we have

experienced in the last several months?

Anne Mullan: Are you asking specifically about flooding in this area, from this winter’s flows?

I don’t actually know how this winter has been on the Umpqua, but in general, flooding is not

harmful to fish. Sometimes you will see fish move into and be trapped in flood plain pits

associated with gravel mining. Even though fish can move back into rivers via hyporheic flow,

we would like to see flood-plain pits with exits that allow for fish to return to rivers as the water

drains so as to avoid fish stranding. On the other hand, we have seen some early studies that

show that some fish spend summers in frequently overtopped pits. Some times they survive, and

sometimes predators are in there with them and so we don’t know how well they are surviving.

However, if a pit is not going to be frequently overtopped and you get flooding into a flood plain

pit that may not be connected again for another five years, then an anadromous fish is not

necessarily going to survive.

I would like to address something that Brian Cluer brought up. Flooding is part of a

natural disturbance cycle that fish are adapted to. So, if you lose part of a run of fish because of

flooding, fish species and rivers have a certain capacity to rebuild populations and habitat.

However, fish are less adapted to altered channels that supply a low-grade chronic source of

sediment that destroys spawning habitat or reduces fish survival. Fish are somewhat adapted to

large scale flooding, but small scale sediments, fines being moved by small scale flows, are not

something that fish are adapted to because they cannot adjust their run timing in response to a

chronic supply of sediment . Fish are adapted to large tributary flushes that occur when they are

not necessarily resident in that part of the channel. However, if you have a continual disturbance

happening at a rate that they are not used to, their response is going to be different.

Question: Isn’t entrapment a big problem?

Anne Mullan: If you remember, Brian described created fish habitat as having a wet and a dry

element to it. Dry alcoves should actually be connected even at summer flows. So also, the down

stream end of wet alcoves should also be connected at summer flows.

Question: How is water being channeled into the mined area?

Anne Mullan: It doesn’t matter how, as long as it is always connected.

Question: But if the water should leave, the fish are trapped there. Am I wrong?

Anne Mullan: If it is graded correctly, wet at low flows, and dug the first time at a reasonable

flow, a way out should remain even during low flows.

Brian Cluer: You have reminded me of a point I wanted to make; after two years those alcoves

become persistent features and are wetted year-round. Juvenile fishes are using them in the

summer and adults are presumably using them in the winter. Thus, alcoves are not entrapment

places, but are open to the main channel.

Now to answer the question about the effect of flood flows this year. There is a lot of

literature that shows that undisturbed stream systems are very resilient to extreme floods. On the

other hand, disturbed stream systems are really affected by even medium floods.

Question: Isn’t the lack of woody debris part of the problem?

Brian Cluer: Well, we could get into specifics and talk about the loss of woody debris. When

you’ve got a limited woody debris reservoir for recruitment in a disturbed system, then every

piece seems valuable. Does that answer your question?

Rich Angstrom: OSU has done quite a bit of good research, with many of the partners that are

present here today, on what fish are doing in and around gravel pits. The research shows that

smolts coming down stream move into the pits when they’re overtopped. They are not only

moving into the pits, but they are also moving into the farm fields and feeding on invertebrates

and other things. OSU’s Peter Bayley, who has been chief sponsor of most of this research,

thinks that the Willamette system used to be highly braided, with a lot of oxbows and off-

channel habitat and his sense is that temporary stranding or year-over stranding in these oxbows

was probably a annual natural event. What we have tried to do, given that information, is to

mirror the flood plain pit mining so that it functions as a natural oxbow. Even though flood plain

pits are generally deeper than oxbows because we take more material out, providing down

stream connections allows for fish to get in and out of them on lower flows. The interesting thing

is that even in the presence of predators, sampling has shown that the size of the smolts that have

rear there over the summer was much larger than anticipated given their age class. Dr. Bayley

has projected that larger size fish will have an increased ability to survive following their tenure

in a pond.

Peter Klingeman: I will just add another comment to Rich Angstrom’s. We did a lot of the

bathymetry on the gravel pits that Rich Angstrom is referring to, and we noticed that according

to DOGAMI’s rules for restoration you had to slope the banks to 1:6 (or perhaps is 1:10?) to a

depth of six feet to try to prevent people from inadvertently drowning. To me, this requirement

was contrary to the idea of preserving or providing overhanging vegetation and things like that

that are considered to be attributes of good fish habitat. However, what Peter experimented with

was using whatever materials he could find, including pads that are used for moving materials

around, to build baffles of wood and timber that were anchored to the shoreline. He then

systematically sampled bare patches at the edge of a gravel pond and areas where you have this

maze of wood structure and looked for differences in the number of organisms using the two

types of habitat. He observed some significant differences in organism use between the two types

of habitats.

There was a little bit of discussion earlier about refuge for fish and how that relates to in-

channel gravel removal, and I wanted to add a comment about that. In Washington and Oregon,

the fishery agencies have done a very good job of working with the highway departments in

prioritizing culverts that blocked fish passage. One of the reasons for doing this is to allow fish to

seek refuge in the tributaries during periods when the main channels are in high flood. Very

often, if culverts are too close to the main stem, that kind of a refuge is no longer available for

fish because the proximity of the culvert to the highway often causes culverts to not be passable

to fish. So state agencies and federal agencies like BLM have been actively involved in culvert

retrofitting and have greatly reduced the number of small tributaries and side channels that are

inaccessible to fish during high flow events.

Comment from member of the audience: One thing that I have observed over the years is that

there have been a lot of proposals for developing new areas of research and trying new

techniques to extract gravel from rivers. As these new methods are proposed to agencies during

the permitting process, you get cooperation with two or three agencies, but one agency says it

isn’t our policy, we don’t allow this. Thus, there is generally a high level of frustration between

federal, state, and county regulators and agencies when dealing with water and aggregate issues.

One of the common concerns is how to get past the permitting process bottleneck so we can start

research that will allow us to try different techniques, in different size rivers, to make some

improvements in gravel extraction that benefit fish and their habitats? For example, in California,

if you are on the east side of Highway 101 you’ve got 3 or 4 agencies that are willing to try new

things. If you jump over to the west side of Highway 101, the coastal commission becomes the

authorizing agency and sometimes you get a real quick “Sorry, this is a no-no land. You can’t get

into a wetted area”. Even though you’ve got absolute hard interest on the part of the operator and

several agencies and scientists, you cannot accomplish the research or try new techniques

because of the coastal commission. It is a really frustrating thing to go through. A lot of times

after getting NOAA Fisheries, Fish and Game, the Water Department and Water Quality on

board you still have to come up with a lot of money to get the information so you can present the

project and have an agency do it. Maybe there is a “place” to establish an area of facilitation to

work through those problems so that this attitude can change from area to area, agency to

agency, and level to level. Maybe we can get some comment from the panel on that.

Brian Cluer: I can comment on that using the Austin Creek example, which I showed a lot of

slides on previously. We almost lost that project at the county level. In California there is an

aggregate resource management plan, a state law that defers the lead authority on regulating

aggregate extraction to each county. Some counties have created their own plans. Some of them

are very narrow and some are very comprehensive, and some don’t even have any plans at all.

The plan in Sonoma County was considered a really good plan for it’s time, but it also has

restrictive sideboards on it. What we have done at Austin Creek completely blew out all the

sideboards on their environmental documentation, and some of the things we are trying to do on

the Russian River really challenge them as well. I think what would help is to do a really good

job of monitoring these innovative projects, and getting the information out. If we go beyond the

normal level of trying to minimize monitoring, but instead think of this as the way of the future,

we need to invest in monitoring these projects because clearly we are going to have to be more

innovative in the future. I think that the key to getting these projects permitted and funded is to

invest more in monitoring, and to get better information from the work we are doing so we are

better able to support the next project of the same type.

Peter Klingeman: I have a related comment. Some of us were talking together at lunch as we

were thinking about how to organize this afternoons’ session and I quickly scribbled down what

somebody was saying and it goes roughly like this. If we, as a group of individuals at a given

location on a river have come up with some kind of a plan for carrying out experiments and

attempting some innovative way to extract aggregate with multi-group overview, involving

several key people from here, then the question comes up: “is there actually a clear position of

authority within each of the agencies that is going to be overseeing that activity so that you can

get the okay to follow that particular innovative path?” Currently, this is an open question and

maybe some of you can respond from the point of view of your organization, company, state or

federal agency. Is there a clear place where you can go to get an agreement to carry out

innovative experiments? (No response.) I guess there isn’t.

Question: Is there a way to build consensus among agencies that pilot or test projects would be a

good thing for improving the way the mining industry operates?

Robert MacArthur: With regard to finding the path to getting consensus among all of the

agencies; it takes a lot of time for all the agencies involved to understand the information that

you are presenting, review your proposal, and then provide you with a yes or no answer. So, if

this process is completed individually within each agency, it can take months or even years to get

an answer. The question then is what path can we create to get a project or research that is

innovative and collaborative, that we think justifies testing, to be permitted? Specifically, what

are the avenues within different agencies to get projects approved, and would agencies be willing

to provide us with a checklist for what their agency requires in order to approve a project? For

example, let’s say that an innovative plan came up and two or three of the agencies got together

with a proponent of a project to formulate the project plan, and we are all in agreement that this

is a really cool thing to do; like Austin Creek. What is the path to go to the other agencies to

promote a project like that?

Comment from member of the audience: Well, we can define the keys to the vault, but how do

you get there to get the okay or not? Pre-application meetings would be one way to deal with

this.

Question: Are decision makers at these meetings?

Peter Klingeman: I think it would be important for the person bringing the idea forward to

identify everyone who needs to be involved in the process, including County Commissioners,

representatives, the whole range of people involved, in order to have that first meeting be

meaningful.

One way to deal with an innovation that doesn’t really have a track record, something

that hasn’t been done in quite the same way any place else, would be to have frequent review.

Would this help lower the level of resistance to innovative projects within agencies that have to

sign off on a permit? I think it will help.

Rich Angstrom was commenting about Peter Bailey’s work. I was the hydrologist for his

research and before I realized it, we were committed to a ten-year monitoring requirement, and I

was planning to retire in less than ten years.

Comment from member of the audience: I’ve been listening to this discussion from a Corps

regulatory perspective, and the avenue to approach an agency and the agency’s response is really

going to depend on what we are talking about in terms of an experimental project. For example,

we have different sections of the Corps. If you are looking for a buy-in of some sort and the

activity is not being done as compensation or mitigation for something that we are regulating,

there may be a way for a different element of the Corps to cooperate with either funding or

technical assistance. We have the same people that the other agencies have: engineers, biologists,

and all of that, whose job it is to evaluate applications to make sure they comply with federal

law. We have some flexibility in terms of how we can authorize the work, but I think what I am

hearing is that the problem is how to determine when to involve these regulatory agencies. Do

you meet with them and form a group and then explain what the project is and what your

expectations are for that first meeting? I think these are difficult questions to answer because we

cannot say ahead of time that it will take a certain amount of information or effort or people to

get a permit. So the answer often becomes: “I don’t have an answer for you.” All I have is

Federal Laws that we are mandated to follow.

Peter Klingeman: And within each program area there are different entities and different

personalities that might become involved.

Brian Cluer: Actually I am a little reluctant to say this but the answer in large part can be boiled

down to who reviews the proposal and how well you know them. You can have the best project

in the world, but if you don’t have the best people from the agencies that understand that project,

you are not going to get very far. So, this is a “plug” to get more geomorphologists in these

regulatory agencies.

Dennis Halligan: Coming from the private side, one of the issues that I see with doing annual

review of permitting is that after having gone through quite a number of permits and

consultations and meetings, the one thing that an applicant doesn’t want to do is have to chase a

permit year after year after year. The costs of a project go way up and the researchers and

operators have absolutely no certainty in their operational planning, so they can’t go to the bank

for a loan because they don’t have any firm business plan that they can present. I don’t know if

this is possible, but is there a way of mandating an annual review and yet throwing some weasel

words into a permit that talk about adaptability or adaptive management or feed back loops or

some wording that will allow the activity to go forward but get modified based upon the

monitoring data that is already collected? Let’s say for example that you are going to put a trench

right down the middle of the wetted channel, and the results of monitoring indicate that you

didn’t in any way reach your project goals. Well then you can say: “Gee, that didn’t look very

good, but I learned something, so next year I’m going to go over here and do a secondary

channel skim.” This flexibility allows for long-term projects to go forward with a built-in feed-

back management loop.

Comment from member of the audience: Something that really helps from the federal level is

early application. There is a huge project going on right now that has incorporated multiple state

and federal agencies and local and private industry. The applicant meets regularly with multiple

partners and regulators and is inviting everybody that they can think of to regularly scheduled

informational meetings. The applicant is ensuring that before an application gets to us, that we

know what is going on. When I was consulting one of the big things we tried to do for our client

was to find out who the players were so that we didn’t miss somebody three miles down the

road. That -in my opinion- is the trick to getting an application through. Apply early, and talk to

enough people so problems don’t crop up later that weren’t anticipated. This process is much

more effective than taking a 3 inch notebook, dropping it on someone’s desk and saying: “here,

give me an opinion on this.”

Anne Mullan: I would like to use watershed councils as an example of how to get unique or

innovative projects permitted through the agencies. We sometimes hear from watershed council

coordinators about projects that a council member brings up and they want to see what the

agencies response would be to that project idea. For example, there are ideas as wild as gravel

augmentation; harvesting gravel above a dammed reservoir and putting it back in the river below

the dam. Watershed councils bring ideas to the table and because they establish relationships

they can get multiple agencies to the table at the same time discussing the idea, brainstorming,

and outlining what could be done. This can help generate ideas or interest in identifying sources

of funding for the project, and clarifying how the project would be monitored. I appreciate your

comment about how you can’t just monitor a river for one year, because that is a problem when

we are asked to do adaptive management. Even after five years of monitoring you often can’t say

what the effect of an action was, and if you narrow the scope of a proposal to include just a

single action and multiple years of follow-up monitoring, you often cannot find funding for the

project. However, I think we all need to start speaking up for the need for that kind of monitoring

to ensure that projects like these get funded. NOAA has small restoration grants available, and I

ask them every time an RFP goes out what monitoring is allowed or required on projects before I

send it out to the watershed councils that I work with. I also want to point out that watershed

councils are often a major but overlooked resource for funding innovative projects in your

community. Watershed councils are partly responsible for driving the process to make this

meeting happen. We wouldn’t be here without them and hopefully they will continue to be

funded and continue to foster the good will that comes from people who volunteer their time to

benefit watersheds. I really appreciate when I hear about new things like this.

Rich Angstrom: We agree with that and our industry has also tried to take steps to get the state

agencies to talk. You can say that getting everyone to the table and talking sounds like a great

idea, and ask why we haven’t been doing that. However, then we get in these meetings and the

tech guys start talking about actually trying to make it work, and how you make the water quality

people at DEQ talk to somebody in the wetlands group over at DSL and ………it all falls apart.

The agency culture is really hard to break down and it is difficult to get different agencies and

groups to merge, even a little bit. Where we go from here? One of the things I think has been

happening in this state that just absolutely has to change, and I confess that I have contributed to

it, is that we have had a culture of exclusion that has developed between industry and some of

the agencies. When agencies sit down with their technical people they should try to engage

industry so they get that perspective. When we sit down to start the permitting process we should

bring in the agency folks and ask them how best we can do this, and then really listen to their

concerns. Every industry member is a little different. Some of my members will incorporate

agency review from the very beginning of a project and some of them don’t want to seek out any

kind of advice; no matter what, they are going to go off in their own direction. I can’t change that

kind of individual decision but I can say for the whole industry we would rather make it more of

an inclusive process.

With the exception of Dr. Church’s outstanding technical presentation -which I will

spend months processing- I thought this Symposium was a good warm up discussion with good

general information, despite the fact that it only covered a portion (2% to 5%) of the aggregate

supply problem on the coast and in the state of Oregon. We have to move this into a bigger

discussion about how we are going to supply aggregate demand throughout the state, and

especially the coastal communities, because it is a real problem. I think one of the things I

learned, and I didn’t even know this until Jeanine Castro said it, is that the benchmarks to the

surveys that we have been doing don’t even exist. We have to develop some kind of consistent

protocol throughout the industry so we can make comparisons, and we can understand and learn

as we go. Otherwise, from my side, research and monitoring is just wasted money and from your

side it is a headache trying to read through it to realize it is not benchmarked to anything. I think

one of the things we can work on is to look at statewide monitoring protocols and think about

how we are really going to do things. We also need to identify studies on imbrications issues.

How long does it take for the Tillamook, which is a flashy and quick pulsing system, to re-

imbricate, or re-armor itself after gravel removal. People that know this stuff well need to sit

down and start identifying what we don’t know, what we need to know, and prioritize and form

partnerships to fund studies to start answering some of these tough questions. I would also like to

see this group get back together at some point and have that discussion. The final suggestion is,

that we keep hearing legitimate concerns about what happens to fish when you mine gravel, and

we need to ask what works, what techniques, what practices, what avoidance, minimizing,

mitigation, whatever works, to addresses and resolves those concerns. I have a fish and wildlife

background myself and I say: “OK, I can understand their concerns but where do we go from

here?” What kinds of things are going to assist the regulators, Shellie’s group and DSL that have

to write these permits to say: “Yes these are important concerns, but what techniques address

them and how can we work on those things?” Those are some things I think we need to tackle

later on.

Guillermo Giannico: We are almost going overtime, but there might be some important

comments out there that have not been expressed yet. I would like to give you one last

opportunity to provide feedback to us. You can provide feedback in writing and you can also do

it by email, but I think it would be, at least from the perspective of OSU and UC Davis,

important to know what other opportunities and needs there are -in relation to the theme of this

Symposium- that we can help address. In some cases they may not involve the universities, and

that is fine. We can share your needs and concerns with the rest of the group, and it is up to those

members that are interested in the issues to engage and take over those activities. We are

especially interested in knowing what other roles we at universities can play in this area, because

this will allow us to continue providing extension services to those interested in gravel extraction

and its effects on fish and fish habitats. We could sponsor another round of this version of the

Symposium in another location such as the Willamette Valley or elsewhere, or we could

organize a follow-up or more advanced workshop where people learn specific techniques to

harvest gravel and enhance fisheries habitat. So, is there anything that you would like to share

that may generate discussion on that at this point? OK, we will start from the back here.

Comment from member of the audience: One thing I think we need to address is involving the

public in these discussions. I am from the south coast and most of the development that is going

on is happening either on or beside the water. A lot of the residents do not like the idea of gravel

being processed within sight, even though they use gravel. So, it is simple, we need to bring a

couple of these issues to a public forum, and look for someone like Fred Walker at OSU to lead

really good workshops in gravel extraction and use of natural resources. We also need the

agencies to be able to work well with the industry.

Guillermo Giannico: I think that since those of us organizing this event work with Oregon Sea

Grant Extension and OSU or UC-Davis Extension, we should perhaps look for them to provide

additional resources to address the issues revolving around gravel extraction, and work with

some of you to plan additional Symposia or workshops that might address those issues. In

addition to workshops, we could produce other types of products, such as small leaflets, run

information campaigns over the radio, in local newspapers, or deliver educational programs to

raise awareness, depending on the strategy we want to use to deliver our message to a specific

audience. The list of options is rather broad, what we need is to identify the salient needs and the

funding sources first.

Comment from member of the audience: I have a comment about the agenda that we had here.

This is an in-stream gravel extraction and fish habitat workshop. When we talked about gravel

extraction, about 90% of it was focused upon the gravel extraction part, and less about the

intricacies of how fish habitat responds to the extraction of gravel. Fish habitat issues,

specifically what’s happening biologically for the fish, were presented, but only seemingly as

side comments, as side information. I still have questions about what is happening with loss of

oxygen, and loss of nutrients. As someone who works in geomorphology, I am most interested in

how a variety of structures in the water that pertain to gravel affect the fish. For the most part we

have been talking merely gravel extraction and not so much what implications gravel extraction

has on fish biology.

Guillermo Giannico: I have a simple answer to that, at least from our perspective as an

organizer of this meeting. I am a fish biologist, and was more interested in hearing about fish

than gravel mining. However, it was relatively easy to fill up the Symposium with gravel and

gravel mining experts, while it was very hard to find people who could have something valuable

to say about the impacts of these activities on fish. The bottom line is that we don’t really know

much about it. People pointed out several experts, Dennis Halligan, Anne Mullan, and Hiram Li

were included among those who could contribute something to the overall discussion we are

having here. I contacted the few individuals that were available, scheduled all those that could

attend the meeting, and one of them had to cancel at the last minute. That gives you some

background on how we ended up with the program we had. On the other side of the coin, I am

not too concerned about what we heard, even though I wanted to hear more fish stories, because

I think there was a need for a lot of the information that was presented here to be presented

anyway. If the demand is there, and it seems it is, we can try to organize another forum in the

future that is more “fish-centric” to make up for this initial shortcoming.

Dennis Halligan: One of the things that we are struggling with is exactly what you are interested

in; that is, what exactly are the impacts of gravel extraction on fish? We are trying to develop

monitoring programs that will get at that question. Unfortunately we have been struggling with

several issues, and the first is trying to identify a control reach against which we can test the

potential effects on the extraction reach. The other problem is that a lot of these extraction areas

are way down in the depositional reaches of river systems where you may have many millions of

acres of upstream variability. So, a lot of what is going on in your extraction reach is or has been

affected significantly by what is going on upstream, such as: roads or other transportation issues,

affects on hydrology, the construction of levies and other infrastructure. What we have been

trying to figure out is how to control or eliminate all the other confounding effects of these other

activities, and just identify what impacts are specifically associated with gravel extraction. This

has proven a difficult thing to do. What we have done, at least on the Mad River, is to try to find

the causal link. However, since we weren’t able to come up with that, we decided that the next

best thing to do was a lot of trend monitoring of the actual fish habitat. That is where the habitat

mapping that I was doing comes in. We now have 2 or 3 years of habitat mapping data. In the

next couple of years, I will probably have 5 years worth of data and will be able to see if cobble

habitat or holding habitat is increasing or decreasing. That is the best that we have been able to

come up with to provide some scholarly inferences of what is going on associated with gravel

extraction.

Brian Cluer: I would like to suggest that we consider a follow-up symposium that addresses

alternative individual business planning. I think we should further explore interesting stories like

the Burner floodplain project, the project that I just barely touched on, where the industry

decided on their own to phase out in-stream dredging and purchase a piece of property that could

be converted, via mining, to an active floodplain ecosystem. I think if we explored that area we

might find some incentives as well as stimulate some creative juices to look further into how this

industry can actually help the ecosystem and stop butting its head against the impacts and

regulations.

Comment from member of the audience: I agree completely. We already have some great

examples of this in the Willamette Valley. Maybe there is an opportunity for a field trip where

we could go out and see where things are working. We could look at areas that are already mined

out, and compare them with places that are constantly being mined in such a way that they don’t

disrupt the interconnectedness between the rivers and the floodplain. When you stand in a pit,

talking and pointing at things, you can come up with more innovative ideas than if you just hear

about it. The case histories we have seen in the last few days have been wonderful but physically

being out there would be an opportunity for a field trip in addition to a symposium.

Guillermo Giannico: I would like to thank the speakers for their time and valuable

contributions. I also would like to thank all those who helped make this Symposium possible.

Ladies and gentlemen we have to adjourn. You will receive the proceedings of this symposium

in the mail.

End of Panel Discussion Session, Day 2.

Speakers’ Biographical Information

Rich Angstrom, JD

President, Oregon Concrete and Aggregate Producers Association

[email protected]

Angstrom is the President of the Oregon Concrete and Aggregate Producers Association

(OCAPA) and has been employed by the Association for 10 years. Prior to his tenure at

OCAPA, Angstrom was a county prosecutor in Coos and Lincoln counties. During his

time as a county prosecutor, Angstrom handled most types of major felony cases but was

particularly focused on environmental crimes. Angstrom is an avid outdoorsman. Born in

Astoria, Oregon, he spent considerable time in the fishing industry before his family

moved to the Willamette Valley. He is a past chair of the state’s Healthy Stream

Partnership and currently serves on the Steens Mountain Advisory Committee. Angstrom

supports collaborative problem solving for difficult public policy issues, and he believes

firmly that Oregon’s heritage relies on having healthy stocks of all species of salmonids.

Education

B.S. in Wildlife Management, Oregon State University, 1986

B.S. in Forest Management, Oregon State University, 1986

Minor in Fisheries Science, Oregon State University, 1986

Doctorate of Jurisprudence, University of Oregon, 1989

Dr. Michael Church

Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Canada

[email protected]

Church is a professor of geography at the University of British Columbia, where he

teaches about environment and resources. In research, he is a fluvial geomorphologist

with about 40 years' experience studying rivers, mostly gravel-bed rivers. His work has

included extensive consideration of riparian management in forests and forestry.

In recent years he has made a study of lower Fraser River, the major river of SW British

Columbia, where conflicting management needs for flood protection and salmon have

raised issues that have focused on gravel mining as a river management strategy.

Church is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Education

B.A., University of Toronto

Ph.D., University of British Columbia, 1969

Dr. Brian Cluer

NOAA - National Marine Fisheries Service

[email protected]

Cluer is a fluvial geomorphologist and has been working for the National Marine

Fisheries Service, SWR Habitat Conservation Division, in Santa Rosa, California, since

the year 2000.

Prior to that position, he worked as a hydrologist for the National Parks Service. Cluer

has extensive field experience investigating the effects of dams on river systems,

including the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park, the Green River in

Dinosaur and Canyonlands National Parks.

Education

Ph.D. in Earth Resources, from Colorado State University, 1997. Emphasis on sediment

transport, stream hydrodynamics, hillslope and fluvial geomorphology

Dennis Halligan


[email protected]

Halligan is the lead fisheries biologist for Natural Resources Management Corporation,

an environmental and forestry consulting firm in Eureka, CA. He received a B.S. in

Fisheries from Humboldt State University in 1980. His clients include federal, state, and

county agencies, industrial and nonindustrial timberland owners, ranchers, construction

aggregate companies, and non-profit organizations. His expertise includes in-stream

habitat and riparian vegetation monitoring, biological assessments, and in-stream

extraction planning, permitting support, endangered species consultations, watershed

analysis, and NEPA/CEQA documentation. He is married and has a seven-year-old

daughter and a seven-month-old son.

Jeff P. Johnson

Principal, Northwest Hydraulic Consultants Inc.

[email protected]

Johnson has been employed by Northwest Hydraulic Consultants Inc. (NHC) for 20

years. He is respected throughout the Pacific Northwest as a technical specialist in river

engineering and floodplain management. Johnson routinely helps both public and private

clients address challenging hydraulic, geomorphic, channel stability, and sediment

transport issues associated with floodplain development projects, bridge and culvert

replacement studies, and stream and river restoration designs. For the past 10 years, he

has been assisting Oregon aggregate producers in identifying potential risks posed to their

operations by neighboring rivers and helping them develop acceptable flood protection

plans. Johnson is an expert in FEMA floodplain management requirements. He is

program manager for NHC’s ID/IQ contract with Region X of FEMA.

Education

B.S. in Civil Engineering, Washington State University, 1985

M.S. in Civil Engineering, Washington State University, 1986, specialized in hydraulics

Minor in Mathematics, Washington State University, 1986

Dr. Peter Klingeman

Department of Civil Engineering, Oregon State University

[email protected]

Klingeman is Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering at Oregon State University. He is a

water resources engineer whose professional life has been spent mainly in university

teaching, research, and public service. He has also been a technical consultant to

government, private industry, and individuals. He has served on national, state, and local

advisory committees and panels, is a Registered Professional Engineer in Oregon, and is

active in the American Society of Civil Engineers. He resides in Corvallis.

Klingeman is presently active with River Restoration Northwest and is one of its five

founders (in 2001). RRNW is incorporated in Oregon and is designated by the IRS as a

nonprofit, tax-exempt organization for public benefit, educational, and scientific purposes.

Klingeman is presently Treasurer of RRNW.

Klingeman has over 40 years of teaching, research, and consulting experience covering a

wide range of topics including hydrology; river hydraulics, sediment transport, channel

morphology; erosion control and bank protection methods, hydraulic structures;

hydropower; fish habitat, in-stream flow assessment, fish passage at culverts and dams;

environmental impact assessment and mitigation; river resource planning, and river

management. His experience includes work in rivers and estuaries throughout the Pacific

Northwest and neighboring states, as well as work and international collaboration in South

America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Education

B.S. and M.Sc., Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley

Dorian E. Kuper, R.G., C.E.G.

President and Senior Engineering Geologist Kuper Consulting

[email protected]

Kuper is a registered geologist and certified engineering geologist with extensive

experience in seismic and landslide evaluations; soil, rock, and foundation investigations;

and natural resource engineering projects. She is an active project manager with expertise

in the coordination of large, multidisciplinary projects, including the preparation of

numerous permit packages for aggregate mine site expansions in Oregon and

Washington. She has been very active in preparing land-use applications for

environmental impact statements and Goal 5 applications for expanding and new

aggregate sites. These applications include geological analysis and addressing criteria

involving land-use concerns. She has managed teams of consultants to design and

secure permits, and has provided testimony at public hearings on behalf of the mining

industry. Kuper has extensive experience in managing the development of mining plans

for the permitting of flood plain mining in Oregon and Washington. Kuper is actively

involved with working with the Oregon Concrete and Aggregate Producers Association

regarding current issues, such as the Endangered Species Act as it relates to the mining

industry.

Education

M.S. in Geology, San Diego State University, San Diego

B.A. in Geology, University of California, Santa Barbara

B.A. in Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

Dr. Robert C. MacArthur

Principal, Northwest Hydraulic Consultants, Inc.

[email protected]

MacArthur has 29 years of national and international experience in managing and

conducting large-scale water resources projects as well as projects focused on

engineering analyses of rivers, deltas, estuaries, and coastal systems. During this period

he has remained active in applied research and teaching. His areas of technical expertise

include water resources engineering, with specialization in the fields of hydrodynamics,

sedimentation engineering, engineering geomorphology, river mechanics, lake dynamics,

limnology, environmental engineering, ecological and wetlands assessments, and

modeling of hydrological and other engineering systems. He has extensive experience

with both large and small river systems as well as lakes, deltas, and estuaries. He has

studied the special problems associated with steep gravel- and cobble-bed streams as well

as large and small silt- and sandbed river systems. He has evaluated problems combining

estuarine circulation, water quality, sedimentation, and ecological processes. He has

worked extensively in the San Francisco Bay-Delta system and on most of the major

rivers in northern California.

MacArthur received the 1985 national engineering award from the National

Society of Professional Engineers for his leadership role in the circulation, sedimentation,

and water quality investigations that contributed to the completion of the $12.5 million

Fisherman's Wharf Breakwater project in San Francisco, California. He received

"Engineer of the Year" awards from the Water Resource Support Center, U.S. Army

Corps of Engineers, and The Hydrologic Engineering Center for this and other projects

he completed. In 2005, MacArthur was recognized by the American Academy of Water

Resources Engineers and received a credential as Diplomate, Water Resources Engineer

(D.WRE), for 30 years of technical contributions to his profession and for his service on

national and international committees to advance water resources engineering.

Education

Ph.D. in Civil/Water Resources Engineering, University of California, Davis, 1979

M.S. in Civil/Environmental Engineering, University of California, Davis, 1973

B.S. in Civil Engineering, University of California, Davis, 1971

Anne Mullan

NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service

[email protected]

Mullan has been an Endangered Species Biologist with NOAA National Marine Fisheries

Service since 2001. She obtained her Ph.D. in Environmental Studies at the University of

California, Santa Cruz, in 2003. Her dissertation focused on population modeling and

policy analysis for California salmon harvest management, particularly Klamath

Chinook. Mullan’s B.S. was in Engineering Physics, University of Arizona, 1986.

Between those two extremes, she studied ecology and energy economics at University of

California, Berkeley, and worked as a programmer analyst for the University of

California.

Ron Rathburn

PBS Engineering & Environmental

[email protected]

Rathburn is a Senior Aquatic Ecologist and Project Manager for the Natural Resource

Division for PBS Engineering & Environmental, an environmental consulting firm with

offices in Oregon and Washington. His nine years of academic training culminated in

graduate and post-graduate degrees that stressed the environmental implications of land

use and ecology. His dissertation analyzed the sediment–animal relationship of benthic

community structure and trophic interrelationships.

He has worked in the Pacific Northwest for 27 years as an applied ecologist, working

with municipal agencies, private business sectors, and the mining industry to assess

impacts on fish and wildlife resources. During the past 22 years, Rathburn has worked

extensively with permitting, NEPA/SEPA analysis, resource evaluation, mitigation

planning, and reclamation programs associated with the dredging and mining industry in

Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Montana. Most recently, he has been Principal-in-

Charge of the environmental evaluation and permitting for an inwater mining operation in

the Umpqua River, Oregon.

Bill Yokum

Freeman Rock Inc.

[email protected]

Yokum graduated with a B.S. from Southern Oregon College in Social Sciences and

acquired his forestry credentials from Oregon State University. He worked over 28 years

with the Bureau of Land Management as a Forest Engineer, Forester, and Planner

/Environmental Coordinator, where he was the lead Interdisciplinary Team Leader.

Yokum began working with Freeman Rock in February 2004. He is certified with the

State of Oregon to test aggregate and to design concrete mixes. He has the lead for

working with the state agencies on the Aggregate Removal Permits that Freeman Rock

holds on the Chetco and Rogue rivers.

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