Watershed Restoration Planning

What is a Watershed Restoration Plan?

A Watershed Restoration Plan is an important tool for identifying and prioritizing the work necessary to improve water resources in a particular watershed. It provides a step-by-step framework for connecting watershed restoration projects (i.e. re-vegetation efforts, channel reconstruction, stream restoration or enhancement, etc) to the resources needed to carry them out (financial, technical, or volunteer resources). The primary goals of a Watershed Restoration Plan are to reduce non-point source pollutants (i.e. excess sediment, excess nutrients, and/or high temperatures), but each watershed restoration plan also has the opportunity to express unique concerns or conservation goals for their particular watershed.

Developing a Watershed Restoration Plans requires the input of multiple watershed stakeholders (those with an interest in the water quality and quantity of given watershed). These stakeholders are the ones who guide restoration plan development, and whose goals are covered within the plan. By encouraging involvement from all watershed stakeholders, a Watershed Restoration Plan will guide water resource work that maximizes public benefit by focusing efforts on areas of highest need, greatest potential benefit, and allowing resource funding to be used more efficiently.

Learn more about Watershed Restoration Plans from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality’s Nonpoint Source Program.

Our Watershed Restoration Plans

The Lower Clark Fork Watershed Group is the sponsor of two Watershed Restoration Plans:

• The Lower Clark Fork Tributary Watershed Restoration Plan was first completed in 2010, and was updated in 2019. It covers multiple tributaries to the lower Clark Fork River – the area highlighted in green in the map below.
• The Thompson River Watershed Restoration Plan was developed in 2017 and finalized in 2018. It covers the Thompson River drainage – the area highlighted in yellow in the map below.

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