Project Summary

Project Background

Nevada Spring Creek Partners, LLC is the sponsor of the Upper Clark Fork Mitigation Bank, providing credits for both wetland and stream impacts within a broad service area in western Montana. The mitigation bank is operated through an administrative management partnership between the sponsor and Ecosystem Investment Partners. The sponsor has restored over 10,000 linear feet of high quality spring creek and associated riparian areas, along with over 260 acres of valley wetlands near the famed Blackfoot River.

As development activities affect the natural resource base in the Upper Clark Fork River major drainage basin (which encompasses the Balckfoot, Flint-Rock, Upper Clark Fork, Bitterroot, and Middle Clark Fork watersheds), the proactive restoration of Nevada Spring Creek and adjacent riparian and wetland habitats creates an opportunity for advanced mitigation of those effects under the Section 404 (Clean Water Act) regulatory program.

In 2005, restoration was completed on a 10,953-foot reach of Nevada Spring Creek and the site was permitted as a stream mitigation bank. In addition, over 264 acres of heavily impacted wetlands have been restored to a high quality mosaic of wet meadow, emergent and scrub-shrub habitats, and permitted as a wetlands mitigation bank (the Upper Clark Fork Wetland and Stream Mitigation Bank). The successful establishment of these habitats creates the opportunity to provide compensation for impacts to similar habitats within the Service Area, which includes most of Missoula and Powell Counties, as well as the metro areas of Missoula, Milltown, Butte, Philipsburg, and Drummond.

Project Location

View Upper Clark Fork Wetland and Stream Mitigation Banks in a larger map

Annual monitoring of the stream bank (photo credit WESTECH Environmental Services)

Primary Components of Value

Stream Mitigation Bank
Because of its proximity to the Blackfoot River (just 3.2 miles downstream) there has been a lot of attention to the Nevada Spring Creek system over the years. Research in the early 90’s showed extensive nutrient and temperature impacts that rendered the stream non-functional as a cold water fishery and in need of substantial restoration. The transformation of the stream system was completed over a three-year period, from 2002 through 2005, with the early springhead phase showing remarkable progress in just two years. Ecological and fishery restoration goals have already been met with maintenance of water temperatures that average less than 60°F at the stream's confluence with Nevada Creek 4.3 miles downstream of the springhead. These are ideal conditions for several species of trout, including native westlope cutthroat, native bull trout, and brown trout. In addition, the delivery of clean, cold water to the Blackfoot River by way of Nevada Creek from this dramatically improved fishery is contributing to the continued restoration of the Blackfoot to its glory days in fishing lore.

Wetland Mitigation Bank
An extraordinary array of willow thickets, marshes, meanders and ponds dotted the landscape during the 1872 General Land Office Survey of the Nevada Spring Creek ranch. 130 years of grazing and haying destroyed much of that habitat, but the underlying soils and seed bank remained. In recent years, wetland dependent species of wildlife traversed the area but few stayed in the hostile environment of grazed pasture and hay lands. The sponsor has undertaken to bring back the native thickets and marshes observed by Lewis and Clark on their journeys through the area. By restoring natural water flow patterns, removing weedy plants, changing grazing patterns and installing over 30,000 individuals of native plant species, the robust wetland habitats of the Nevada Creek Valley are being re-established.

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