Crystal Springs Creek is one of the few, and perhaps only, salmon and steelhead spawning stream located within the city limits of Portland, Oregon. It is an example of what committed people can do to bring a neglected, urban stream back to life. The creek begins bubbling out of ground at the Reed College campus in southeast Portland. That clean spring water is ever-present and ever-cold, perfect water for salmonids to spawn and rear. It flows nearly three miles through the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden, the Eastmoreland Golf course, the Westmoreland City Park and through the Sellwood neighborhood to its confluence at Johnson Creek, which, in turn, empties into the Willamette River a few miles away.
In the 1990s a number of salmon and steelhead runs were listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. Crystal Springs Creek was included. Reed College, the City of Portland and other governmental agencies – plus private groups – went to work to bring the creek -- and its fish -- back to its former condition. Over the next few decades the nearly dozen fish-killing culverts were replaced at considerable cost. Hundreds of volunteers improved the once-desolate riparian zone using pickaxes, rakes and elbow grease. By 2014 wild coho were seen spawning in the creek, the first time in many, many decades. The next ten years has been even better for the fish, habitat, wildlife -- and the people. And, yes, more improvements are on the way to make this a special water and its fish even better.
