The Johnson Creek Watershed Council is actively involved in ecological restoration, community outreach, environmental education, and land use advocacy.

Our restoration team focuses on invasive weed species treatment and native plant revegetation. We have 120 active weed management sites on the banks of Johnson Creek and have successfully treated over 420 acres of invasive Japanese knotweed (95% eradication success), 70 acres of yellow flag iris and 20 acres of false brome. In fall of 2008, we began a native species revegetation project with 19 of the property owners who have had weeds treated on their property.

We also focus on in-stream restoration projects to benefit threatened salmon and other aquatic species. In 2007, we removed a fish passage barrier on Kelley Creek, a tributary to Johnson Creek that supports the watershed's largest populations of steelhead, coho, cutthroat trout and lamprey. This project provided fish with access to an additional 2,500 feet of high quality habitat in the upper reaches of Kelley Creek. In 2010, we intend to implement a salmon habitat project at the mouth of Johnson Creek where it enters the Willamette. Not only will this project benefit fish migrating into and out of Johnson Creek, but it will provide a critical stop-over for all the salmon migrating along the Willamette.

Our community outreach program engages hundreds of volunteers every year. For example, at our eleventh annual Watershed Wide Event in March 2009, we mobilized 300 community volunteers at ten high-priority restoration sites throughout Johnson Creek Watershed. In one morning's work, these volunteers planted 4,800 native trees and removed eight tons of invasive weed debris.

Our Youth Engaged service learning program entered its second year in 2008. Eleven classes from six schools have studied and helped restore Johnson Creek since the program's inception. Two hundred students have monitored water quality and macroinvertebrate communities, removed more than 50 cubic yards of invasive plants, and planted more than 3,000 native trees and shrubs. One of the participating schools presented their independent research on lamprey in Johnson Creek at the Council's Annual Meeting.

The Council's Land Use Committee has worked closely with the City of Gresham to implement sustainable stormwater standards and encouraged the City to adopt a sustainability policy. The Committee's support for Metro's 2006 Natural Areas Bond Measure paid dividends in 2007 with more than 250 acres of natural areas and open space preserved in the Johnson Creek Watershed since the measure's passage.