Siletz Bay restores 37 acres of tidal wetlands after a century of diking turned marsh into pasture

Drift Creek Unit of Siletz Bay National Wildlife (Image Credit: Wikipedia) Oregon's Siletz Bay is undergoing a major wetland restoration effort this summer, with crews working to bring back natural tidal flows to land that was dramatically altered by more than a century of diking and land conversion. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the project is restoring 37 acres of wetlands in the Drift Creek Unit of Siletz Bay National Wildlife Refuge, including by filling old drainage ditches and digging new tidal channels. The work is intended to improve habitat, water quality and flood resilience while creating better conditions for fish and other wildlife.How the wetlands changedThe lower Drift Creek floodplain was once a complex coastal landscape made up of tidal marshes, scrub-shrub areas, spruce swamps and winding channels that carried water toward Siletz Bay. Over time, however, people changed the landscape through diking and land conversion.The dikes restricted the movement of tides, while drainage and other alterations transformed large portions of the historic wetlands into pasture. Natural channels gradually filled with sediment, leaving the floodplain far less conn...