These suggestions do not substitute for any local, state or federal legal regulations. Streamside trees provide habitat, shade the waterway, stabilize streambanks, and provide a source of future large wood in the stream channel. Naturally fallen large wood can create the complex instream habitat essential for many fish and other aquatic organisms. Plant native plants on cutbanks, ditches and exposed soils.
Vegetation can help stabilize banks and reduce the amount of sediment that erodes into streams.
Excess sediment runoff into streams can carry pollutants, cover gravel spawning and rearing beds needed by salmon, and reduce the amount of oxygen available to fish and other aquatic life. Install cross-drain relief culverts and water bars on roads and skidroads. These help to reduce waters flowing directly down roads, which can cause erosion and carry sediments to streams. By diverting water from road surfaces and drainage ditches onto the forest floor, sediment can be filtered out of the water before it enters streams. Material left on slopes can send mass slides into the stream, blocking fish passage and increasing sediment loads.