Document Actions
Headwaters Heritage Initiative
Restoring Freeways For Fish
Project: Buck and Jones Irrigation Diversion
Little Applegate River
Buncom, Oregon
Miles of habitat now accessible to fish - 30
Project Completion - September 2006
Before
After
Every spring, residents along the Little Applegate River would build the Buck and Jones Irrigation Diversion – dangerously erecting 6-foot high metal stanchions along a concrete apron that stretched across the river and then carefully placing long, wooden timbers from one bank to the other. 
They did this to divert water into a canal, providing irrigation water through the spring and summer months. The diversion stopped upstream moving fish in their tracks, eliminating all opportunity for fish to pass the dam until October when the timbers were removed.
This annual construction, deconstruction and associated impacts to migrating fishes are no longer an issue.
In September of 2006, the Applegate River Watershed Council, with funding assistance from the National Center along with support from many other conservation and recreation groups, state and federal agencies, corporations, and foundations, removed the Buck and Jones Irrigation Dam on the Little Applegate River.
The irrigation dam blocked steelhead access to 30 miles of high quality habitat in the Little Applegate Watershed, an important stream for steelhead populations. Removing the Buck and Jones Irrigation Diversion improves the ability of both adult and juvenile steelhead, rainbow, and cutthroat trout to move to high quality stream areas.
This project was funded in part by generous support from the World Wildlife Fund.
Photos by Daniel Newberry of the Applegate River Watershed Council.
