ScholarWorks at University of Montana

Placing River Restoration Projects in a Watershed Context: The Jocko River on the Flathead Indian Reservation, Montana

Part of the Lower Flathead River basin of western Montana, The Jocko River’s 235,000 acre Jocko Watershed initiates in makes up 18% of headwater areas on the Flathead Indian Reservation and joins the lower Flathead River on the Reservation. The Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes are pursuing a variety of watershed restoration strategies, supported in part by a damage award to the Tribes to compensate for their loss of traditional uses of the upper Clark Fork River which was damaged by historical mining. Watershed-scale restoration efforts are ongoing, and are in part supported by a damage award to the Tribes for their loss of traditional uses in Silver Bow Creek and the upper Clark Fork River.

Watershed restoration is guided by a strategy with four elements – assessment, protection, passive restoration or modification of land uses, and active restoration. Assessment efforts encompasses developing a full environmental history of the basin, measuring its current condition, and defining key dynamic physical and ecological processes required to achieve and maintain a desired future condition. Protection includes development of criteria to identify critical habitat and implementing mechanisms to protect these habitats. In situations where full protective measures cannot be achieved, effort is focused on theto modification ofy land uses that are disrupting the floodplain environment. Active river restoration has been, and will be employed only in river reaches where disturbance is significant and geomorphic processes are moving the river toward a new equilibrium thatwhich does not support ecological processes inferred to exist prior to disturbance. Each of these approaches is illustrated with examples from the Jocko.