Comments sought on Upper St. Joe Aquatic Restoration Project

AVERY– The St. Joe Ranger District of the Idaho Panhandle National Forests is in the initial stages of planning a large scale aquatic restoration in the headwaters of the Upper St. Joe watershed.

A public scoping document is available and serves as an invitation for comments and suggestions.

Information about the project is available online at http://www.fs.usda.gov/projects/ipnf/landmanagement/projects.

This large-scale aquatic restoration project is located in the headwaters of the Upper St. Joe watershed on the St. Joe Ranger District.

District Ranger Matt Davis encourages public input to help develop this project.

Your input will help identify potential issues and concerns that should be analyzed in the environmental assessment for this project.

Please provide your comments by July 28, 2017 as this will help us proceed with our analysis.

Comments may be submitted to the St. Joe Ranger District office by email to comments-northern-idpanhandle-stjoe@fs.fed.us, in person, or by phone.

The Upper St. Joe Aquatic Restoration Project is intended to improve aquatic habitat and restore native fish habitat.

This project will complement the efforts of the Coeur d’Alene Basin Restoration Partnership, which identified goals, major actions, and restoration priority areas in more than 4,000 square miles in and around the Coeur d’Alene Basin, including the St. Joe watershed.

Within the project area, historic mining, roads, and recreational uses have adversely affected stream habitat in many locations.

Some of the project ideas include replacing existing fish barrier culverts with fish passage culverts, improving road surfacing to minimize fine sediment delivery to streams, adding large wood to streams to improve fish habitat, removing berms in the floodplains that prevent floodplain access, etc.

The implementation phase of the project will take five to ten years to complete.

For more information, please contact the St. Maries office at 208-245-2531.