What watershed and habitat improvement activities would most likely lead toward more desirable conditions in a timely, cost effective manner?

• Landowners should develop erosion control plans for decommissioning old roads, maintaining existing roads, and constructing new roads. Target road upgrade and repair in the areas identified above;
• Incorporate mitigation elements into Timber Harvest Plans in the timber dominant Lower Wheatfield SPWS to decommission historical streamside roads and upgrade road drainage facilities;
• Consider careful planning of land uses that could exacerbate mass wasting, since the relative potential of landsliding is high to very high in 60 percent of the subbasin;
• Decommission and revegetate streamside roads, focusing on those where channel braiding and/or aggradation are present;
• Pursue cost sharing grants to upgrade appurtenant ranch roads in the Walters Ridge and Hedgepeth Lake SPWSs;
• Reduce livestock and feral pig entry and subsequent impacts to the riparian zone to encourage stabilization of stream banks and re-vegetation of the riparian zone. These impacts are most common in Danfield, House, Pepperwood and Tombs creeks;
• Retain, plant, and protect trees to achieve denser riparian canopy cover where current canopy is inadequate. Ensure that adequate streamside protection zones are used on the Wheatfield Fork and tributaries to reduce solar radiation and moderate air temperatures, particularly on the mainstem and upper tributaries;
• Encourage the addition of large organic debris and shelter structures in order to improve sediment metering, channel structure, channel function, habitat complexity, and habitat diversity for salmonids;
• Encourage more habitat inventory surveys and biological surveys of tributaries, as only 45 percent of the subbasin has been completed;
• Evaluate canopy composition and monitor air temperatures to examine canopy, temperature, and other microclimate effects on water temperatures;
• Conduct both instream and hillslope monitoring to determine whether current land use practices are allowing for recovery and protection of the salmonid habitat in the subbasin;
• Expand continuous temperature monitoring efforts into the upper subbasin and tributaries.