We've been working on creating a blog at the Squaxin Island Tribe's natural resources department for awhile now. And, earlier this week we finally put it out for the public to see.

Yesterday I wrote up a piece about habitat restoration on the Deschutes. Have a look:

On the wall of my office is a photo of one of my co-workers, Joe Puhn taken during a habitat survey on the Deschutes River. He’s standing in a few feet of water, hanging on to his float tube. What’s interesting about the picture is the width, depth, and curviness (sinuosity) of the river.

We were doing the survey in the summer when most of the Deschutes runs wide and straight, shallow and hot. Someone, probably kids looking for a better inner tubing experience, piled up rocks and gravel to narrow, deepen and add sinuosity to the channel to speed the river.

What is good for inner tubing is also good for fish — faster water makes more interesting tubing and sweeps out the fine sediment in spawning gravel (fine sediment can choke salmon before they ever emerge from the gravel). Added sinuosity lengthens the river and allows the water to interact more with the cool, underlying gravel....