Meet our Guests: Montana Pagano

Montana Pagano

Watershed Restoration Specialist, Nez Perce Tribe Department of Fisheries

Wallowa, OR

8/25/21

Montana Pagano covers a lot of ground with her work for the Nez Perce Tribe as a Watershed Restoration Specialist. Her project area encompasses 3 million acres in Northeast Oregon and Southeast Washington where she focuses on salmonid (salmon and trout) habitat restoration. Semester in the West was able to visit one of her recent projects on a site owned by the Nez Perce Tribe where her team is in the final stages of creating a side channel on the Wallowa River to enhance native fish habitat. More than 100 years ago the river was straightened by non-native residents, destroying much of the river’s fish habitat. The Nez Perce’s side channel project reintroduces refuges for juvenile salmonids that are quickly vanishing from streams due to the prevalence of dams and warming stream temperatures caused by climate change.

It took several years before the project received approval and the Tribe was able to break ground. Montana reflects, “habitat restoration work takes a long time. It takes a long time to get this habitat to the level of degradation that it’s in, so you can imagine it takes a while to rehabilitate it.” Currently, the river is showing signs of improvement. The side channel has already created mellow stretches of stream for fish to rest with ample shade from transplanted willows, and the river will continue to evolve as natural processes take over the restoration work. A long time in the making, the persistent efforts of Montana and her team are beginning to pay off.

By Ruthie Colburn

Photo credit: Phil Brick

Meet our Guests: Gail Hammack

Gail Hammack

Rancher

Wallowa County, OR

8/25/21

Gail Hammack was not born a rancher. She is not a fourth generation Wallowa County resident like her late husband Doug McDaniel. Gail Hammack is a trained educator who traded her corporate job as McDonald’s regional Vice President for a life of cattle ranching. Today, she is a steward of land, of legacy and of love.

In 1998, Gail married Doug and, simultaneously, his cattle-grazing operation in rural Eastern Oregon. Doug—Gail recounts—loved the land immensely. His passionate care for river systems is what ultimately inspired the couple to re-meander the section of Wallowa River flowing through their private property. In the 1950s, the Wallowa was mechanically straightened to build railroads and grazing lots. This environmental surgery had unintended consequences: lacking in natural curvature, the channelized river became too fast-moving and too warm to support ecologically critical fish species such as salmon. In 2003, Gail and Doug—with the help of local resource agencies—began the process of putting the meanders back into their section of the river. The first two phases of the project focused on improving natural resources and restoring the historic fish habitat. They re-routed half-a-mile of Wallowa canal into a mile of winding riverbed. Doug, Gail, and their team geo-engineered the new channel with felled logs and vegetative cover to reintroduce diversity and complexity into the riparian area.

Since Doug’s passing in 2019, Gail has devoted herself to carrying on her husband’s legacy. She owns and operates the cattle operation while simultaneously spearheading Phase Three of the Wallowa River Restoration Project to further improve wildlife habitat, restore healthy riparian processes and inspire other landowners to do the same.

By Kate Joss

Meet our Guests: Liza Jane McAlister

Liza Jane McAlister

Rancher, The 6 Ranch

Wallowa County

8/21/2021 

Liza Jane McAlister defies most stereotypes of cattle ranchers. She is the fourth generation to raise cattle on her family ranch, The 6 Ranch, a legacy she secured after buying the land from her family. Wearing denim and a radiant smile, Liza Jane shared with Semester in the West her passion for the land and her aim to preserve Western traditions while ranching. It’s clear as she speaks that she has a deep connection to the animals she cares for, “I make their life super good; my cows are happy cows.”

In addition to the full-time job of maintaining the ranch, Liza Jane has worked to add stream meanders and complexity back to the section of the Wallowa River that runs through her property in partnership with the Grande Ronde Model Watershed and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW). Inspired by her neighbor Doug McDaniel’s re-meandering work upstream of her property, Liza Jane completed two separate projects on the river to recreate side channels and deep pools for fish habitat. She chose to graze her cattle along the riparian area of the second project, a controversial decision due to cows’ tendency to degrade stream habitat. According to Liza Jane, without using grazing as a management technique invasive reed canary grass crowds the stream bank and becomes “a nasty-ass monoculture that’s ten feet tall”. ODFW did not initially allow her to graze here due to the grass’s ability to stabilize stream banks, but Liza Jane insisted grazing rights be included for the re-meandering project to continue. ODFW agreed to Liza Jane’s terms and her hard work came to fruition. These days, she keeps her eyes peeled for salmon returning to her stretch of the Wallowa.

By: Claire Warncke

 Photo credit: Elio Van Gorden