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Portland is a Sanctuary City

Johnson Creek Oxbow Restoration Project

Sewer and Stormwater
Active
We are designing a project to restore habitat and reconnect Johnson Creek and Errol Creek with their natural floodplains. This work will help protect endangered salmon, improve water quality, provide habitat for birds and other wildlife, and reduce flood risk in the surrounding neighborhood.
The project is in the design phase. Construction has been delayed until 2031.
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Project Area

Map shows the restoration project area on Johnson Creek north of the Springwater Trail and roughly between SE 39th and 46th avenues

General Schedule

This project is in the design phase, which will continue through March 2026. Construction for the Johnson Creek Oxbow Project is now scheduled to begin in 2031. However, staff are pursuing other funding opportunities. We are continuing to complete design work on this project and hope to start construction sooner than 2031 if we can identify additional funding. 

What's Happening Now - Construction Delayed

Due to funding challenges, Environmental Services is delaying construction on this and other projects throughout the city. We are prioritizing work that is critical for life safety, property protection, and economic vitality. This includes repairing and upgrading the City’s main wastewater treatment plant on N Columbia Boulevard and focusing our resources on infrastructure that serves large numbers of people, such as pump stations, force mains, and large diameter pipes. 

Staff will continue to repair urgent sewer and stormwater issues as they arise. If your basement sewer backs up or your property or street floods, please report it immediately to the City’s Maintenance Operations hotline at 503-823-1700. It is staffed 24/7, at all hours and all days. 

Bringing Salmon Back

The video below shows juvenile coho salmon trying to swim upstream in Johnson Creek, near the Johnson Creek Oxbow Project site. Human made obstacles like the one in this video make it difficult to impossible for fish to swim upstream. Environmental Services has been helping to bring salmon back to our urban waterways for two decades by replacing human made obstacles with fish friendly logs and boulders.  This project and others throughout Portland will help salmon with their journey.

Human made obstacles like the one in this video make it difficult to impossible for fish to swim upstream. Environmental Services has been working for decades to help bring salmon back to Portland's urban waterways.

Project Background

The Johnson Creek Oxbow Restoration Project is located on Johnson Creek near SE 45th and Harney street.  Environmental Services has identified several significant issues in this area, including flooding, poor water quality, and loss of habitat.  Johnson Creek floods on average every other year and can flood suddenly.  This presents significant risk to nearby properties. 

Johnson Creek is also one of the last free-flowing streams in the Portland area and provides important habitat for coho and Chinook salmon, steelhead and cutthroat trout. While these species still exist in Johnson Creek and its tributaries, their long-term survival depends on our ability to restore habitat and improve water quality.  

The Johnson Creek Oxbow Restoration Project is part of a broad city effort to improve habitat conditions and reduce the impacts of flooding along Johnson Creek. It will build upon four previous restoration projects in the area: Tideman-Johnson (2006), Errol Heights Wetlands (2007), Errol Creek Confluence (2009), and the Johnson Creek Oxbow Scour Repair (2019). These efforts to restore Johnson Creek focus on returning it to a more natural state. 

The central feature of the site is the namesake “oxbow” meander — a U-shaped bend — of Johnson Creek. In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) built a channel to connect the southern ends of this oxbow, forming a small island in the middle. The WPA project included rock walls along the banks of the channel and a concrete fish ladder.   

The rock wall was meant to control flooding. Unfortunately, it disconnected the nearby wetlands and floodplains.  Water can no longer spread out and soak into the ground, and instead can overflow the banks and flow into nearby homes and businesses. The WPA project ended up making flooding worse and more destructive. 

By removing the rock walls of the channel and restoring the natural floodplains, this restoration project will give space for floodwaters to spread across natural areas and soak into the ground.  This will reduce the impact of flooding to nearby homes and businesses. It also helps improve water quality and increases habitat for birds, fish, and other wildlife. 

What are project Goals? 

The project has the following goals: 

  • Reconnect Johnson Creek to its natural floodplain
  • Reduce temperatures in the creek to give fish access to cool clean water they need to thrive
  • Improve water quality by treating stormwater before it reaches the creek
  • Remove the existing fish ladder so fish (especially salmon) can move upstream
  • Create calm “backwater” areas where salmon and other native species can rest
  • Improving fish passage in Errol Creek under SE 45th

We Want to Hear from You

Environmental Services will inform residents and businesses about project activities and respond to questions and concerns in a timely manner. The following resources will help you stay informed and report concerns:  

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