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WASATCH COUNTY — With hammers and heavy equipment, the Division of Wildlife Resources is putting the Strawberry River back together again.
Past management practices prevented adequate vegetation to hold the banks in place, allowing erosion to widen the river's channel. In turn, that sent too much phosphorus-rich soil downstream and raised the water temperature in the river, stressing the fish.
"Temperatures could get to the point where the fish started to stress, just like us without A/C. You know you need to stay cool in the summer and fish need that, too," said Strawberry River Restoration Project Manager Justin Robinson.
To fix the problem, specially engineered rock features are being installed along more than 12 miles of the river to direct water to the middle of the river. Then, high-erosion areas are shored up with packed earth wrapped in fabric woven from coconut husks. Those will biodegrade in five to eight years, providing vegetative matter for re-vegetation.
"We're just helping the river build itself back to a healthier state," Robinson said.
That means reseeding disturbed areas with native grasses and bringing back the willow trees that once lined the banks.
"The fish will come and they will stay and get bigger, and we'll provide more fishing opportunities," Robinson said.
Fishing generated a $110 million economic impact for Wasatch County in 2011, and many of those anglers baited their hooks in Blue Ribbon fisheries like Strawberry Reservoir.
The rehab work has been done over the past 11 years during the five weeks between the cutthroat trout and kokanee salmon spawns. It should be finished in the summer of 2015. But there could be more restoration projects in the Strawberry River's future.
"We have the potential to do a couple or three more miles upstream, if we feel it will be a benefit," Robinson said. "We don't want to do this work just to do it. If we're not going to help the stream, help the fish, help all the habitat in this valley, we're not going to do anything. So we're doing the research right not to see what would benefit other portions of the stream."
