Background
The Cox Creek-Willamette River confluence area has an active floodplain including mature riparian forest, riffle-pool stream morphology, and an off-channel pond. The site is characterized by seasonal inundation, diverse microhabitats, and transitional vegetation cover.
Invasives covered roughly 70 percent of an area that also supports remnant native plant communities including cottonwood-dominated floodplain forest, mixed riparian forest and willow dominated shrub-scrub wetland.
Although degraded to varying extents, these plant communities continue to provide important habitat, water quality and recreational functions.
The riparian and confluence sites are owned by City of Albany, ATI Wah Chang (ATI), and Oregon Parks and Recreation Department and are managed for light recreational use by hikers and bicyclists. Site management consists of parking lot and sidewalk maintenance for public access, as well as a trail system that parallels the Willamette River from Baldwin Park downstream to the second Oxbow Lake (Second Lake).
Infrastructure on the terrace adjacent to the project area includes the City of Albany wastewater treatment facility, ATI, and transportation corridors including the railroad and road systems. These facilities are located on the eastern perimeter of the sites, but influence Cox Creek. The facilities directly affect channel morphology, aquatic and riparian habitats, and water quality. However, relative to past interactions between these properties and the adjacent waterbodies, contemporary impacts are undoubtedly a fraction of the historical disturbance. Limiting factors for the Albany Oxbow Lakes and Cox Creek confluence area are taken from NMFS (2008) and include observations from the assessment.
Limiting Factors Included:
Specific actions identified in the Recovery Plan to address limiting factors in the mouths of tributaries to the Willamette River and other approaches to address problems in the Albany Oxbow Lakes area include the following:
Altered water temperatures
Degraded water quality due to stormwater runoff and discharge from industrial facilities
Riparian vegetation loss due to riparian conversion for agriculture and industrial development
Habitat simplification due to historical and contemporary industrial use of oxbow lakes and the adjacent floodplain
Fish passage barriers on tributary streams.