Symposium Field Trip 2027

The 2027 RRNW Symposium field trip on Friday, February 5 will be to the East Fork Lewis River Reconnection Project site in Clark County, Washington. The field trip will be led by Jasmine Zimmer-Stucky with the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership.

Project Overview and Status

Spanning more than three river miles, the East Fork Lewis River Reconnection Project is a $23.5 million habitat restoration project led by the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership and Clark County. The project reduced the flood and erosion risk for neighboring homes, businesses, and publicly owned infrastructure, rehabilitated instream and wetland habitats, and also improved and expanded access to the river for recreation. Construction began in the spring of 2025 and was completed in October 2026.  The project was constructed by Tapani Inc. and engineered by Inter-Fluve.

The primary focus of the project addressed damage from legacy gravel mining by backfilling abandoned pits, regrading the surrounding floodplain, and introducing key habitat elements like large wood and side channels to restore natural river complexity. 

Historical maps dating back to the 1850s depict the East Fork Lewis River as a dynamic, multi-channel network rich with side channels, alcoves, wetlands, and extensive floodplains. Beginning in the mid-20th century, gravel mining operations began on the East Fork Lewis River, forcing the complex river system into a single channel. However, after severe flooding in 1996 and 1997, the channelized river avulsed into the nine inactive gravel mines known as the Ridgefield Pits. The avulsion has driven substantial bank erosion, land degradation, and a severe decline in ecological floodplain functions for native fish and wildlife.

In addition to restoring more than 300 acres of floodplain and 1,400 linear feet of channels, the East Fork Lewis River Reconnection Project includes several other important restoration components:

• Dyer Creek flows into the East Fork Lewis River just below the Ridgefield Pits stretch of the river. A 2-ft culvert installed under a road blocked fish passage along Dyer Creek. The culvert was removed and replaced with a 6-by-10-ft box culvert. This action, along with the removal of a berm between Dyer Creek and the East Fork Lewis River, restored fish access to more than 27 acres of wetland habitat and over a mile of upstream spawning and rearing habitat along Dyer Creek.
• More than 480 large woody debris structures were installed during construction. Large woody debris structures create salmon habitat, stabilize riverbanks and floodplain, and help slow and direct the flow of water across the landscape. Approximately 90% of the timber sourced by Estuary Partnership for the East Fork Lewis River Reconnection Project was either salvaged from on site or procured from sustainable timber operations. In addition to Clark County, the Estuary Partnership purchased timber from properties managed for habitat restoration (removing Douglas-firs to restore oak savannah habitat) and from privately owned conservation-oriented forestlands. Watch a short video to learn how timber was harvested from Spud Mountain and used to restore the East Fork Lewis River. 
• An approximately 6-acre portion of a Clark County maintenance yard was relocated out of the 100-year floodplain to higher ground as part of the East Fork Lewis River Reconnection Project. This area was then restored to floodplain and off-channel habitats. As a result of the relocation, the flood risk to the maintenance yard decreased and the access for large trucks was improved.
• As part of the aquatic wildlife salvage efforts during dewatering, over 45,000 freshwater mussels and 80,000 lamprey were relocated to sections of the EFLR both up and downstream of the project area.