Headwaters, Habitat Link and Forest Protected in Sandy Basin

Western Rivers Conservancy has purchased the headwaters of the Little Sandy River! The 332-acre property is on the western flank of North Mountain and includes seventy acres of old-growth forest and a wetland that forms the beginning of the Little Sandy River.

The North Mountain property, purchased from Longview Fibre Company, is an in-holding within the Bull Run Watershed Management Unit, which is the source of Portland's drinking water supply. With funding provided by Portland General Electric (PGE) as part of their Clackamas River hydro relicensing, WRC will likely convey this property to the adjacent Mount Hood National Forest that manages the Bull Run Watershed Management Unit.

Western Rivers Conservancy has added another property to the habitat link we are creating between the old-growth forest reserves in the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness Area to the south and the Bull Run Watershed Management Unit to the north. WRC purchased an 80-acre forested property on the northern edge of the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness Area from Weyerhaeuser Company. We will convey this property to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in early 2006. WRC began to create this habitat connection in 2001 when we purchased the Dodge Ranch along two miles of the Sandy River, and in 2002, when we purchased a 204-acre property along Wildcat Creek. These properties will link critical habitat and migratory corridors for species that depend on old-growth conditions.

We reported in our Fall 2005 newsletter that PGE donated to WRC a 47-acre parcel that harbors the last significant concentration of riparian old-growth forest along the middle Sandy. Recently, WRC conveyed this rare, remnant stand of old-growth forest to the BLM. The property is now managed as part of the BLMs Sandy River Area of Critical Environmental Concern.