Nes(u)cca–Neskowin–Sand Lake watershed council reports habitat gains, plans culvert replacements and monitoring expansion

Natalie Knights, executive director of the Nestucca, Neskowin and Sand Lake Watersheds Council, told the Tillamook County Board of Commissioners on March 12 that the council focused in 2024 on partnerships and on-the-ground habitat work to benefit salmonid species.

Knights said the council placed 48 large‑wood structures across three creeks in the Sand Lake project and that first-year monitoring showed more spawning “redds” in places where they had not been previously possible. “Stream complexity is one of the main limiting factors for the Oregon Coast coho population for their recovery,” Knights said.

The council described several near-term projects. This summer it expects to replace two fish‑blocking culverts in the Upper Sutton project with bridges, opening about 0.5 mile of upstream habitat. A planned Louis Baxter and Horn large‑wood project would place 58 structures across three creeks and treat roughly 2 miles of stream if funding and permitting proceed. Knights said a federal funding source for that project was frozen at the time of the presentation and could delay work until 2026.

The council also described a longer-term proposal to remove and decommission three culverts and the overlying road fill at a lower Sutton/Proposal Rock loop site in Neskowin. That project, still in design, would remove substantial fill and—if completed—could improve about 11 miles of habitat, the presenter said.

Knights outlined ongoing monitoring: the council and partners deploy HOBO temperature loggers at 25 sites countywide each May and retrieve them in October; the loggers record temperatures every 15 minutes. The council also helps run a volunteer E. coli monitoring program at the same 25 sites in partnership with the Tillamook Estuaries Partnership; results are uploaded weekly to TEP’s public water-quality map, Knights said.

On outreach, Knights reported a volunteer seed‑collection and transplant event in September 2023, a biennial Nestucca Bay cleanup in April 2024 that removed more than 500 pounds of trash with about 25 volunteers, and the council’s Science on Tap speaker series. She told the commissioners the council is a staff of one with a 10‑member volunteer board and relies heavily on donated materials and partner support, including donated bridge beams and timber donations from CTSI and Stimson Lumber.

Commissioner Bell asked about Knights’s tenure and staffing; Knights said she had been in the director role “just a little over a year now” and confirmed the council currently has one paid staff member and relies on volunteers and board engagement. When asked about temperature trends, Knights said she had submitted monitoring data to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and would provide specific results to the county, but she did not have trend details at the meeting.

The presentation concluded with Knights encouraging residents to sign the council’s newsletter and to contact the council via email or its website for more information.

Why it matters: the council’s projects aim to increase pool formation, floodplain connectivity and spawning gravel availability that staff and partners say are central to recovery of coastal salmonids in southern Tillamook County. The council’s work also feeds data into county and state planning through temperature and bacteria monitoring.