Stream Channel Revegetation in Stevensville, MT

Bitterroot Water Partnership is a non-profit organization located in the Bitterroot Valley, MT leading conservation, restoration, and community development across the valley. 

Demonstration gardens, volunteer-fueled restoration projects, and educational workshops promote the understanding of the critical need to protect and enhance healthy waterways to support a functioning watershed and well-informed community. 

Bitterroot Water Partnership (BWP) and Great Bear have a long-standing relationship across the many aspects of their organization. We have assisted with water-wise workshops, grown plant packs that are distributed to the local community, and provide the riparian vegetation planted in their many restoration efforts. 

BWP’s restoration projects work to rebuild healthy waterways on both public and private land throughout the valley. Coordinating with landowners paired with streamside revegetation - largely completed by a broad and dedicated group of volunteers - have led to the completion of numerous projects that all work in tandem to protect our waterways. 

The BWP restoration team recently completed a revegetation project at the Fork Owen Ranch in Stevensville, MT. Over 200 riparian shrubs grown by Great Bear were installed along a historic side channel that had been restored into a wetland swale. 

The goal of the project is for the plants to provide wildlife habitat, erosion control, and shade over the swale and creek, keeping water temperatures lowered. 

BWP used Black Cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa), Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides), Redosier Dogwood (Cornus sericea), and Serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia).

Despite the hot, dry summer, BWP reports that they’re seeing 80% plant survival.