Milo McIver Fish Enhancement Project, Clackamas River, Oregon

Inter-Fluve was contracted by Portland General Electric (PGE) to design and construct two 700-foot-long channels designed to provide cold-water rearing and refuge habitat for state and federally-listed juvenile coho, Chinook, and steelhead. The North Channel uses a groundwater collection gallery, mixing hyporheic flow with groundwater, to provide salmonids cool water in the summer and warm water in the winter. The South Channel is a high flow channel bed that was lowered to match the elevation of the river during low summer and fall flows when juvenile salmon need to escape to the cooler water.

We placed over 125 trees into the two channels.

North Channel before construction.

Just after construction.

Four years after construction.

During flood flows, submerged log jams and vertical piles help slow down water, reducing erosive forces on the landscape and providing young salmon and steelhead valuable refuge from the flows. Photo taken just after construction.

Four years after construction.

The Milo McIver project is a part of a larger plan for the restoration and revival of the Clackamas River and its tributaries.