The Council's mission is "to facilitate community-supported maintenance and restoration of the streams, rivers, and lakes within our watersheds".
Ellen is coming back to teach us about the geology of our region!​
We are privileged to have Ellen Morris Bishop give another talk on behave of the Council. The talk will be given October 1, 2025, 5:30 pm at the Halfway Lions Club. The Title of her talk is: A Geologic Biography of the Wallowas and Blue Mountains.
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We live in an active and storied landscape. When you raft thru Hells Canyon, hike up Eagle Creek, or drive the Snake River Road to Huntington, you are traveling on rocks that once were islands off the coast of today's Mexico. These ancient formations are the foundation of Northeast Oregon, and their collision with North America (Idaho) produced the granites of Cornucopia, the Wallowas, Elkhorns and elsewhere. Then volcanic eruptions spawned by the Yellowstone Hotspot, filled in this rugged ancient landscape. Faults that are still active today uplifted the Wallowas, Elkhorns and other mountains, creating the Baker and Grande Ronde valleys in the process. And finally, rivers, floods and glaciers fashioned the landscape we know today. What might the future bring?
Baker Resources Coalition high school interns construct a beaver dam analogue on Camp Creek during the summer of 2023.
PROJECT SPOTLIGHT
Camp Creek Ecosystem Resiliency Project
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Walking along present-day Camp Creek, one can only imagine how abundant beaver populations once influenced the ecosystem. Presently, Camp Creek is incised, there is little connectivity with the historic floodplain, and lowered water tables fuel upland vegetation encroachment. Flows are routed quickly through the system with little opportunity for sediment deposition or water storage. Reduced water storage makes this system and the surrounding human communities particularly susceptible to floods, drought, and wildfire.The goal of this project is to reconnect Camp Creek with its historic floodplain using Low-Tech Process-Based restoration. This technique promotes the restoration of natural stream processes through the installation of different types of hand-made structures. Specifically for Camp Creek, installed and planned structures include Beaver Dam Analogues (BDAs) and Post Assisted Log Structures (PALS).
Take a virtual tour of the
Powder River Watershed
Click here to read about the collaborative effort that PBWC is involved in working to conserve sage-grouse in Baker County.
