Prairie Creek is and has been a home to many. It is the ancestral and unceded homelands of the Yurok Tribe. Over the years, it has been occupied by fishers, hunters, ranchers, loggers, and mills. And in its waters swim Chinook and coho salmon, steelhead, coastal cutthroat trout, eulachon, and lamprey. Initiated in 2015, the Prairie Creek Floodplain Restoration Project aims to revive critical salmonid rearing habitats, reconnect Prairie Creek with its floodplain, and ultimately rehabilitate the vibrant floodplain and wetland ecosystem. The project is a collaborative effort between CalTrout, Save the Redwoods League, the Yurok Tribe, and our partners.
The Prairie Creek Floodplain Restoration Project is located 3.5 miles upstream from the ocean and marks a very important location in the lives of salmon and steelhead in the Redwood Creek watershed–this site is the last downstream opportunity to provide floodplain rearing habitat in the system. At the project site, the creek is being transformed from steep-sided banks and a disconnected floodplain to a connected series of off-channel ponds and backwater features with large wood installations to create habitat for young salmon and steelhead. This habitat is critical in the winter when it provides shelter from high flows and rich habitat to feed and grow prior to outmigration to the ocean.
CalTrout works closely with our partners Save the Redwoods League, California State Coastal Conservancy, the Yurok Tribe, and a team of local consultants to implement this multi-phase project. From 2021 through 2023, the project team implemented three construction seasons. We built 11 acres of riparian and wetland floodplain habitat including an off-channel pond, and we removed nine acres of asphalt from the mill site. In the 2024-25 construction seasons, the project team plans to do a similar amount of work to complete a new trail gateway and realize the complete habitat restoration vision.
To accomplish restoration at scale, this project incorporates many different people and approaches. Hear from a few of the individuals involved in this project and how each of us contributes our own piece to Praire Creek's restoration.
The Prairie Creek Floodplain Restoration Project is located 3.5 miles upstream from the ocean and marks a very important location in the lives of salmon and steelhead in the Redwood Creek watershed–this site is the last downstream opportunity to provide floodplain rearing habitat in the system. At the project site, the creek is being transformed from steep-sided banks and a disconnected floodplain to a connected series of off-channel ponds and backwater features with large wood installations to create habitat for young salmon and steelhead. This habitat is critical in the winter when it provides shelter from high flows and rich habitat to feed and grow prior to outmigration to the ocean.
CalTrout works closely with our partners Save the Redwoods League, California State Coastal Conservancy, the Yurok Tribe, and a team of local consultants to implement this multi-phase project. From 2021 through 2023, the project team implemented three construction seasons. We built 11 acres of riparian and wetland floodplain habitat including an off-channel pond, and we removed nine acres of asphalt from the mill site. In the 2024-25 construction seasons, the project team plans to do a similar amount of work to complete a new trail gateway and realize the complete habitat restoration vision.
To accomplish restoration at scale, this project incorporates many different people and approaches. Hear from a few of the individuals involved in this project and how each of us contributes our own piece to Praire Creek's restoration.
Mary Burke, North Coast Regional Manager, CalTrout
The Prairie Creek Floodplain Restoration project brings together a diverse set of partners to work on a large-scale restoration project, and CalTrout Regional Manager Mary Burke is at the helm, coordinating and leading the effort. From the landowner, to state partners, to funders, to the Yurok Tribe the project creates a restoration community united around this project.
William Bowers, Project Manager, Yurok Tribe Construction Corporation
The Yurok Tribe brings invaluable technical expertise and cultural knowledge to the project and has been a part of the project from its beginning. The Yurok Tribe Construction Corporation and Fisheries Department are implementing the design team’s vision - reshaping the creek’s channels, removing invasive plant species, and reintroducing native vegetation. William Bowers talks about his experience as a fisherman and Yurok tribal member and the pride he feels getting to work on large scale restoration projects like the one at Prairie Creek.
Ross Taylor, Fisheries Consultant, Ross Taylor and Associates
Legacy sediment from historic timber practices and infrastructure building disconnected the creek from its floodplain. To restore connectivity we are digging a new channel to reconnect the streamflow to wetlands and backwater features. This video shows the care and hard work that goes into protecting the creatures that call Prairie Creek home while we work on sculpting the new habitat.
Aaron Martin, Habitat Restoration Biologist, Yurok Tribe
Due to years of harmful activities on this landscape including logging, grazing and development, the creek's stream bed became incised and pushed up against the highway embankment. This restoration project aims to bring the meandering nature back to the natural stream bed through the meadow and to get more water back up onto the floodplain. Many phases of restoration have worked towards these goals including de-watering the existing channel and piping it under the meadow while the old channel was being restored. Aaron has been a project lead since the start and has personally overseen all phases of the stream bed restoration. His job is to guide the restoration efforts, keeping the best interests of fish and other wildlife in mind and making sure these same species are not harmed throughout the multi-year construction process.
Leslie Wolff, Hydrologist, NOAA Fisheries
NOAA has been a project partner from the start here in the Redwood and Prairie Creek watershed. This system was identified early on as a high priority watershed for recovery of threatened and endangered salmonid species on the North Coast of California. NOAA has worked closely with CalTrout, Redwood State and National Parks, Save the Redwoods, and the Yurok Tribe to help drive meaningful recovery actions and fund on the ground projects such as the Prairie Creek Restoration Project.
John Bair, Senior Riparian Ecologist, McBain Associates Inc.
At Prairie Creek, a working landscape and old mill site blanketed with non-native and invasive plants is restored to a lush creek-side and wetland! The project site was once pastureland with cows grazing on hay processed through the on-site mill. McBain Associates led the revegetation design and installed it in partnership with the Yurok Tribe.
