In 1998, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes finalized a Consent Decree with the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) to pay for the restoration, replacement, and/or acquisition of injured natural resources in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin (UCFRB), as compensation for natural resource damages basin-wide. Following an extensive natural resources inventory and restoration suitability analysis, the Jocko River watershed was selected as the target restoration watershed. The Jocko was chosen because it is most similar in size, streamflow, hydrology, and species composition to Silver Bow Creek and the Clark Fork River, the primary areas of injury in the UCFRB. In addition, the Jocko River drainage is a “core area” for the endangered bull trout. The Jocko River watershed also supports a relatively healthy population of Westslope cutthroat trout, a Tribal Species of Special Consideration and a State of Montana Species of Special Concern.
Navigating the Master Plan
The Jocko River Master Plan is broken into an executive summary, four different sections, and six appendices, each as a separate pdf file. To start, we strongly encourage you to use the Master Table of Contents. It contains links to all the sections and appendices.
Within each of those files, there are multiple links. Some are links to subsections within the same file, others link to other sections or appendices. The diagram below shows the Adobe Acrobat tool that will allow you to navigate back and forth as you click on these links. One of the most important buttons to use when navigating within a document is the “Return to Previous View” button, which will allow you to return to where you were before you clicked on the link. If you don’t see this button on your toolbar, you can add it by right clicking on one of the Next Page/Previous Page buttons and selecting it. Links to other documents will open in another window.
Another important tools is the bookmark. The bookmark panel is on the left side of the screen and serves as an electronic table of contents to the document you are currently in.
Our Work
In 1998, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes finalized a Consent Decree with the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) to pay for the restoration, replacement, and/or acquisition of injured natural resources in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin (UCFRB), as compensation for natural resource damages basin-wide. Following an extensive natural resources inventory and restoration suitability analysis, the Jocko River watershed was selected as the target restoration watershed. The Jocko was chosen because it is most similar in size, streamflow, hydrology, and species composition to Silver Bow Creek and the Clark Fork River, the primary areas of injury in the UCFRB. In addition, the Jocko River drainage is a “core area” for the endangered bull trout.
The Jocko River watershed also supports a relatively healthy population of Westslope cutthroat trout, a Tribal Species of Special Consideration and a State of Montana Species of Special Concern. The Jocko watershed was also selected for restoration because it has the greatest danger of further resource injury due to the high rate of development in the watershed. The lower reaches of the Jocko River ecosystem have suffered significant disturbance from land use such as agriculture, irrigation, livestock grazing, transportation, and residential and commercial development. These and other cumulative water quality impacts have destabilized a substantial portion of the Jocko River and substantially modified bull trout and Westslope cutthroat trout habitat in the Jocko River, particularly downstream of the town of Arlee. These habitat modifications have exacerbated the problems of competition for existing habitat by brown and brook trout, and hybridization of Westslope cutthroat trout with rainbow and Yellowstone cutthroat trout.
Project Location
The Jocko River is a tributary of the Flathead River in northwestern Montana. From its headwaters in the Mission Mountains, to its confluence with the Flathead to the west, the river is situated entirely within the Flathead Indian Reservation. There are three primary tributaries of the mainstem Jocko River: the North, Middle, and South Forks.
Project Goals
The overall goal is to create up to 800 acres of newly constructed, restored, or enhanced wetlands or riparian areas within ten years, and make measurable progress toward restoring bull trout. To achieve this goal, the Tribes have chosen to follow four steps: Assessment to identify the areas with restoration potential; Protection of the best remaining habitats; Passive Restoration to modify the activities that are causing the degradation, or that are preventing the ecosystem from recovering; and Active Restoration, when the injury to an ecosystem has been so great that simply modifying or stopping the injurious activity is not enough.
Demonstration Reach Restoration Project Phases I and II
The Tribe’s restoration of the Jocko River began with Phase I of the Demonstration Reach project in fall of 2004. The Demonstration Reach project continued with Phase II in fall of 2008. The Demonstration Reach was identified as an early priority for restoration because it was a significant sediment source located near the upstream end of the 22 mile restoration reach identified in the Jocko River Master Plan. This reach was also identified as a restoration priority because stream temperatures are generally suitable year round for all life stages of bull trout. The two phases of restoration address approximately two miles of the Jocko River channel and floodplain.
The Demonstration Reach of the Jocko River was channelized and diked approximately sixty years ago. These changes resulted in an incised channel that was disconnected from the floodplain. The first photo to the right shows the Jocko River through the downstream extent of Phase II of the Demonstration Reach before the completion of construction activities. The channel pattern is relatively straight and steep banks along the channel prevent regular access of flood flows to the floodplain.
Adaptive Management
Important ecological processes that occur in the Jocko River ecosystem include:
- Channel and floodplain connectivity
- Channel pattern, profile and dimensions
- Sediment transport
- Large wood recruitment
- Disturbance regimes (timing, intensity, and frequency) Plant community composition, succession, and species richness
- Nutrient cycling
- Soil nutrients and organic matter
- Hydrolic regime (flood frequency)
The Jocko River Master Plan document is a set of interactive PDF documents. All sections of the document should be downloaded to the same folder on your system. A ‘Read Me First’ file is included in the ‘Main Document’ download and as a separate file for download. The contents of this file are also shown below at left. This file should be read before opening individual sections the Jocko River Master Plan document. Do not rename any of the files after downloading, and make sure that all files including the appendices and supplemental documents are in the same folder as the main document.
Within the Jocko River watershed, some ecological processes are impaired due to historical and present land and water uses. River and floodplain restoration actions are intended to restore these processes to their maximum practical potential. Monitoring specific restoration treatments provides data that allows managers to determine whether ecological processes are improving after restoration work has been completed in a reach of the Jocko River. Adaptive management is a way of managing a restoration project where information about previous restoration phases is used to modify designs for later restoration phases. The discussion below summarizes how this adaptive decision-making process has been used in the Jocko River watershed by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and their interdisciplinary team of scientists.