Steamboat Creek of the North Umpqua watershed. Photo by Mark Conlin.

Steamboat Creek’s importance as a tributary to our beloved North Umpqua River cannot be overstated. The geology, topography and precipitation of its watershed create frequent​ extreme high-flow events. These events carve deep pools with
cold bottom water and distribute coarse gravel in the area’s numerous riffles and glides. Steamboat’s headwaters are fed by glacial deposits that store rain and snow and provide cold water throughout the year.

Thanks to these characteristics, the Steamboat Watershed has more than 50 miles of anadromous fish streams, 40 miles of streams with resident fish species, and a diverse array of aquatic life. It is particularly important as habitat for salmonids, providing outstanding spawning and rearing habitat and crucial cold water refugia. Steamboat’s wild salmonids include spring Chinook, coastal coho, sea-run cutthroat trout, and winter and summer steelhead.

Summer run steelhead in the Big Bend Pool. Photo by David Lambroughton.

Steamboat Creek is particularly important for summer steelhead. Because they remain in freshwater streams for longer periods, including through warmer summer months when stream temperatures now frequently exceed their natural requirements, summer steelhead are uniquely dependent on habitats that provide cold water refuges. Like other anadromous fish, they also require connected habitats, adequate flows, clean gravel, and a complex environment for spawning and rearing months.

There are only two populations of Oregon coastal summer steelhead – those of the Siletz and North Umpqua Rivers. The wild steelhead of the North Umpqua are almost entirely dependent on Steamboat Creek for spawning, rearing, and survival.

Pacific Rivers’ work and advocacy for the North Umpqua River and Steamboat Creek over the years
​Pacific Rivers has a long and proud history of conservation science, advocacy, action, and results in the North Umpqua River Basin. It includes

• Designation of the North Umpqua as a National Wild and Scenic River in 1988;
• Major contributions to the development in the 1990s of the Aquatic Conservation Strategy of the Northwest Forest Plan to increase protection of the rivers and tributary streams of the North Umpqua (as well as many other rivers on federal forest lands in the region);
• A decade of consistent monitoring of salmonid populations in two key North Umpqua tributaries, Steamboat and Canton Creeks; and
• Current work to catalog and synthesize all data from all studies and reports on the Steamboat Creek Watershed over the past fifty-plus years.

But conservation is a commitment, not an endpoint. It requires eternal vigilance. Today, we work in partnership with allied organizations in the North Umpqua Coalition, and with federal, state and local agencies and elected officials to protect and build on the results of our past work. Together we aim to identify present and emerging problems and threats to the North Umpqua and its ecosystem, and to work for effective and durable ways to address them.​

In 2019 – in response to years of research and advocacy by Pacific Rivers and our allies – Congress designated the Frank and Jeanne Moore Wild Steelhead Sanctuary in the watershed of Steamboat Creek. That legislation recognized the Sanctuary’s values and stated broad goals for their protection. But five years later, there is still no clear inter-agency plan for the whole watershed to ensure that those goals are met.

Little Falls on Steamboat Creek in Autumn. Photo by Michel Hersen.

In 2023, we once again:

• coordinated snorkel surveys of juvenile salmonids (with participation of students from the local Phoenix High School) in Steamboat and Canton Creeks;
• summarized a decade’s worth of data and findings from those surveys;
• initiated a project to secure a protective watershed management plan for Steamboat Creek;
• investigated the possibility of securing water quality protection of Steamboat Creek through Outstanding Resource Waters classification by ODEQ;
• continued our effort to end the summer steelhead hatchery program that imperils the North Umpqua’s wild steelhead; and
• worked with conservation allies to hold the owners of Winchester Dam accountable for disastrous consequences of their “repairs” of the dam in the summer.

In 2024, we are working to secure Outstanding Resource Waters protection for Steamboat Creek.

Outstanding Resource Water protection
Oregon’s Outstanding Resource Waters (ORWs) are “high quality waters that constitute an outstanding state resource due to their extraordinary water quality or ecological values, or where special protection is needed to maintain critical habitat areas.”
ORWs fit in the highest tier of Clean Water Act (CWA) protections. The CWA requires states to set minimum standards for water quality; to make plans to bring all degraded waters at least up to minimum standards; and to prevent or strictly limit degradation of all waters that meet or exceed minimum standards.
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A higher bar is set for state-designated Outstanding Resource Waters. They are to be “maintained and protected”. No long-term degradation is to be allowed, period. Activities to protect, improve and restore them can and should be prioritized.
That’s just what Steamboat Creek needs. Between the 1950s and 1980s – prior to forestry rules that Pacific Rivers helped secure in the 1990s – timber practices regularly removed much or all shading from streams and degraded stream channels, raising water temperatures and destroying aquatic and riparian habitat. Since then, some progress has been made to restore Steamboat Creek. It needs to be accelerated today, especially in light of climate change. Having the right goal – to restore, maintain and protect water quality and other designated values – is key. An ORW designation can provide that.

Pacific Rivers is an active member of a coalition to secure ORW classification for Steamboat Creek. Our partners include American Rivers, Trout Unlimited, and the Pew Charitable Trusts. The coalition’s formal proposal, finalized in May, is to designate Steamboat Creek as an ORW above its confluence with Canton Creek as well as named and unnamed tributaries located within the 99,653-acre Frank and Jeanne Moore Wild Steelhead Special Management Area (with the exceptions of Annie Creek, Knott Creek and Hobart Creek, and Horse Heaven Creek above its confluence with Windy Creek). This would provide much-needed water quality protection to build on prior designations that recognized but did not adequately protect Steamboat Creek’s ecological, resource, cultural and economic values.

What’s next
​Our coalition’s proposal has already earned letters of support from the Cow Creek Tribe of the Umpqua Band of Indians, the Tribal Council of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Our petition provides a good model for other ORW petitions in Oregon and other states.

​We expect our proposal to be considered in Oregon’s Triennial Review of Water Quality Standards later this year. Please stay tuned for updates and action alerts.