CREEK REPAIR: NORTH IDAHO CONSERVATIONISTS WORK TO FIX TROUT HABITAT IN PRICHARD CREEK
The Spokesman Review | May 30, 2025
MURRAY, Idaho – A century ago, there was a dredge floating in Prichard Creek.
It was six stories high, 44 feet wide, 106 feet long. An arm hanging off the back scratched at the earth around the clock for nine years, from 1917 to 1926.
In that time, it turned over 5 miles of the Prichard Creek floodplain. It also left behind lasting damage.
Waste rock moved by the dredge sits in large mounds near Murray, a strange moonscape interspersed with spring -fed ponds. A stretch of Prichard Creek goes dry every year during low water, its flow disappearing underground for about 2 miles. Even the parts of the creek that run year-round have been short on complex fish habitat, with few pools and woodpiles that offer the sort of cover cutthroat trout love.
Creeks all over the West have a similar history, including other tributaries of the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River. Here on Prichard Creek, though, conservationists and a timber company are trying to make the most of an opportunity to untangle that legacy.
Trout Unlimited and Idaho Forest Group are leading a long-term project to restore about 10 miles of the creek, where it runs through property owned by the timber company.
*NOTE: The reference in this article to daytime public access is misleading. The conservation easement document is silent on the topic of public access.
