Our Solution

A strategic, comprehensive, intensive effort across a six-river landscape to reconnect fish populations with the habitat they need by updating road crossings and other barriers for absolute maximum return on investment.
An historic opportunity for Oregon.

Starting in 2010, fisheries scientists and local habitat professionals began assessing the entire 6-river landscape covering some 940 square miles on the North Oregon Coast that feeds Tillamook and Nestucca bays. The Tillamook-Nestucca watershed and the North Oregon Coast represents some of the richest salmon and steelhead recovery potential anywhere in the lower 48. They identified all 260+ remaining barriers to fish passage throughout the Tillamook-Nestucca, and determined that to fix them all would take about 70 years at current spending levels to achieve. The costs of some of the projects on that list likely simply outweigh the overall benefit. Through a detailed cost-benefit analysis, they then determined the precise portfolio of projects that achieves absolute maximum habitat bang-for-the buck: 93 projects that will result in access for 6 species of ocean-going fish to 95% of the habitat available at a fraction of the cost of a more traditional approach.