Lab #4 Marmot Dam Removal

The Marmot Damn Field Trip

The Marmot Damn on the Sandy River was built in 1913 as part of the Bull Run Hydroelectric Project. It took seven years after almost a century of service, Portland General Electric, (PGE) federal and state agencies, and conversations groups settled on a plan to remove both the Marmot Dam and the Little Sandy Dam. The place where the Dam was has evidences of all the stages of the river, both in ecological and social succession.  It went for been a place of resource extraction, logging, taking out gravel, taking out fish to a place of energy production so are the utility building a dam exporting energy and then seven years ago starting in about 1999 the process of changing the way the authorities think about the river in this place is value, so it change from the succession of extraction energy production to say the value of this river is ecological function and it was worth it to remove the dam to spend the money to take out the structure that have been there for eighty years.


In 2007 the dam was out boom the end of an era and the beginning of a new era started the beginning of the face of restoring the Sandy River in a big way. The Dam on the river was a matter because the fishes cannot make back open down the river. The Dam was a passage barrier the fishes cannot get over coming back went the Dam came them out them all of the fish can go back and forward; this is a huge change in the benefits biologically. One of the missions was restore the free flow for the good reason of restoring the river the ecology. In the place where the buildings of the power plant used to be is a flat area where the Sandy river watershed Council is working doing some reforestation projects with native trees at this place is a secondary regeneration.


This place was a private area owned by PGE but there was a Non-profit organization called Western River Conservancy and they work doing what is called commutation of land. They get private land donated and then they contend and then they transfer to public Agencies for public use. So in this case the Western River Conservancy got founding in part from the government.  This a US found called the land and water conservation found that the US congress allocate to projects. Here the Non-profit Agency got founding from the US government combined with it own fit money; first they have a precier come and estimated the value of the timber on about 4000 acres of land that have been the utilities of property. Ones they are agree for the price the non-profit pay for the land and then donate the land to the US government. They want to put it back in public ownership where the conservation value is high. Actually there is a conservation corridor along the Sandy River in order to make different patches for habitat.


The three steps in order to make this land in perfect balance biologically talking. The first was convert the land from private back to public one of the biggest steps removing the Dam was a complicated legal process and then the actual physical restoration that is happened there and down the river. The actual restoration site has been planted by the government ownership and Sandy River Watershed council. they were the ones that did most of the restoration and just because it was a mat there they have to do a lot of work just to turn of the soil to measure this was useful that plants can actually put the roots into it; and so this was a secondary succession because the soil already existed but they have to help it up a little bit before things like a big conifer could grow on it. Here the soil has different level of compaction; ones are the gravel and the other is a soft and moist area where the trees are planted because they used fertilized to improve the conditions.

Forest Across the Marmot Dam bridge  

The compaction is one of the most important ideas in terms of succession; the compaction is one of the most severe impacts the development and human activities have on soil and plants. The more compacted is more difficult for roots go in there is less air pockets in the soil and those air pockets is where the water stores; because were high levels of disturbances there they are trying to stop invasive plants from the start they did some experiments in order to see what can grow in this area there were examples of Cedars that were the first surviving plants they are in pretty good shape. In the sites they want to leave opens like a meadows because they hope to have camps site and other recreation in there they don't want a thick forest because there are some ideas open ahead.

Soil type in mature forest  

Across the river was a mature forest covert by discomposing woody debris over time. Mostly around the area is forest staff everything fallen from the trees, moss forming a thick layer. Here are the primary producers plants and then the discomposed making soil breaking the nutrients back so that the plants can retake it when they are doing photosynthesis. When a tree falls in a forest there are different processes in the gaps that it makes. The canopy in the mature forest area looks pretty open and  its not complete dark to the sky, so there is a lot of light that heats the undergrow there. The vegetation is no much middle canopy 12 to 20 feet grow there is a pretty sample stage in succession that have  lot of trees that are one age but not as many things that are maybe only half way growing up. They called this forest as shifting because is always moving.