By DEAN REA/Correspondent/The Herald—A dozen people stood in the geographic center of Lane County and envisioned what the surrounding 847 acres may look like in the future.
More than six decades ago the Dexter Dam was completed and the downstream area eventually became the 847-acre Elijah Bristow State Park.
The dam helped ensure that seasonal flooding would no longer threaten property in Eugene and Springfield.
Meanwhile, the meadows, woodlands, wetlands and the Middle Fork of the Willamette River would change.
The state parks department shepherded that change, which is being reviewed under the direction of the Middle Fork Willamette Watershed Council.
Saturday’s tour led by ranger Sean Steward was one of several scheduled to help plan a method of maintaining a healthy habitat in a park criss-crossed by more than 10 miles of trails trod by people and by horses and traveled by bikers. Large public areas provide space for picnics and such gatherings as a celebration-of-life ceremony that was conducted there Saturday.
“The park has planted more than 150,000 trees as part of the restoration program during the past 17 years,” said Stewart, who has spent the past 15 years there. This “band-aid” approach to restoration is changing to “let nature take care of restoration,” he said.
The public is invited to participate in charting this plan during the next two years, explained watershed representatives Ka-Voka Jackson and Dov Weinman.
Tour members walked under canopies of Western and Incense cedar and Cottonwood on trails often framed by blackberries, which Steward admitted are difficult to control without the use of herbicides.
The park provides habitat for osprey, great blue herons, bald eagles and beavers. It also is home to several threatened species, including the Western pond turtle and the Oregon chub.
Deep pits where gravel was mined during the 1970s and ‘80s are home to frogs, turtles, birds, deer and elk, Steward said. “And as we stand here, water it flowing beneath us,” he added. “The park is a French drain.”
The Middle Fork of the Willamette River rushed downriver a short distance away as tour members made their way to a final viewing site.
“We have a fire-hose river,” Stewart said as he stood above the deep-blue river. You need “stuff like wood and fine gravel running through it” to provide natural habitat for Salmon, steelhead, Oregon chub and freshwater mussels and to ensure a healthy forest, he said.
“We want to reset the river because it isn’t doing everything it can do,” he added, which is one of the objectives the watershed council is considering in its plan.
Another challenge facing the park, Steward said, is “how can we help the park weather climate change?”
You can take a similar tour at 5 p.m. Sept. 28 or at 10 a.m. Oct. 23 or at 5 p.m. Oct. 26. Travel Highway 58 to the Trent (Rattlesnake) intersection, turn north toward Trent and follow the park signs.
(htts://www.middleforkwillamette.org/event/elijah-bristow-restoration-walking tour/)
Footnote: Dexter State Park was renamed in 1979 to honor Bristow, who founded the nearby community of Pleasant Hill community during the mid-19th Century.