A race to raise money: Deschutes Land Trust has a deadline for Whychus Creek property
A hiker explores Whychus Creek at the proposed Whychus Canyon Preserve. Photo: Ron Hoyt.
The Deschutes Land Trust is hoping to protect a stretch of Whychus Creek that could provide prime steelhead habitat and new recreation trails — but is rushing to raise $160,000 by the end of the year.
“We’re under the gun to raise the final funds for Whychus,” said Brad Chalfant, executive director of the Deschutes Land Trust.
The Bend-based nonprofit has an agreement with the landowner to buy 450 acres, along two miles of Whychus Creek downstream of Sisters to create the Whychus Canyon Preserve.
But the Land Trust has to raise $2.9 million to buy the property by Dec. 31.
“We originally thought that all of the funding would come from agencies and major foundations, and we realized late summer that that wasn’t going to happen,” Chalfant said. “We’ve been scrambling, but it’s such an important project for steelhead.”
If the trust doesn’t meet the Dec. 31 deadline, the landowner is free to move on and sell to other parties, Chalfant said, although the landowner could still work with the organization. But some of the funding already lined up could start to fall through, Chalfant added.
For the last several years, biologists have been releasing tiny steelhead into Whychus Creek. With a new fish passage facility in place at the base of Lake Billy Chinook, fisheries managers are hoping to re-establish a run of steelhead that will migrate from Whychus Creek to the ocean and back. And Whychus Canyon Preserve, along with other protected areas along the creek, would provide habitat for the fish, he said.
“It will really be the place where the Upper Basin’s steelhead run is reborn,” Chalfant said.
State biologists estimated that over 1,000 steelhead returned to Whychus Creek in the 1960s, before dams blocked their migration, said Don Ratliff, senior aquatic biologist who is working on the steelhead reintroduction efforts.
And if the land trust could protect the creek and the vegetation along the banks, it could benefit the fish, he said.
“I really applaud their efforts,” Ratliff said.
While wildlife habitat conservation for fish and other species would be a primary goal of the preserve, it would also create new recreation opportunities.
“It’s a two-mile stretch of the creek, so it’s easy to see you can have miles and miles of trails on the property,” Chalfant said.
The property is neighbored by Bureau of Land Management land, and the land trust is considering new trails that could link up with existing ones, as well as routes that go along the rimrock, into the canyon, and lead to Alder Springs.
But first the group has to buy the property. The land trust is currently talking with potential donors, Chalfant said, as well as fishing, hiking and skiing groups, to muster interest in the project.
“We’re seeing real interest,” he said. “It feels like we’re getting real traction.”
Kate Ramsayer can be reached at 541-617-7811 or kramsayer@bendbulletin.com.
