Ninemile Creek Restoration Program

The Ninemile Creek watershed is located in the Middle Clark Fork River watershed in western Montana. Historical placer mining activities significantly altered the morphology of the Ninemile Creek valley. A placer gold boom occurred between 1874 and 1887, and mining with draglines, dredges, hydraulic hoses, and sluicing continued until the late 1940s. Alluvial gravels and cobbles were worked into tailings piles ranging from 12 feet to 40 feet in elevation above the stream channel.

In 2003, Trout Unlimited and the USDA Forest Service – Lolo National Forest initiated a comprehensive program aimed at rehabilitating disturbed mining areas in the watershed. River Design Group, now part of SWCA, serves as the engineering firm of record for seven phases of restoration encompassing more than six miles of stream channel, 60 acres of riparian floodplain, and seven tributary reconnections.