All his life Jimmy Hamblin has watched Wolf Creek die.

Each time its winter torrents ripped out a piece of a neighbor's back yard; each time federal engineers straightened its channel and fortified its banks with concrete and steel; each time another kid crawled up its banks without any fish. Hamblin felt a little bit of his hometown die with Wolf Creek.

Last week Hamblin, 62, stood in ankle-deep mud under a fog of diesel exhaust beside the stream he has grown up with. He was watching a fleet of heavy equipment take apart Wolf Creek's braided channel, level it's rutted floodplain, and tear into its eroded banks. This however, was not another environmental disaster, but a first-of-its-kind stream restoration project.

By the times it is completed, according to its architects, Wolf Creek will meander through Greenville under a canopy of willow and alders, rippling over riffles and around gentle bends, and flowing silently over scour holes - a healthy stream controlling its own natural flow.

Will it work?

"It has to work, doesn't it!" said a resolute Hamblin.

The $400,000 Wolf Creek project has already put Greenville on the map as the first place in California -and the third in the nation-where private owners have recreated a natural meander as a means of achieving long-term stream channel stability.

The Wolf Creek restoration is one of several project in the Feather River watershed developed by an alliance of over 20 public agencies and private companies. The groups are cooperating to solve local problems that would be impossible working as individuals, said Leah Wills, coordinator of the watershed project for the Plumas Corporation, a non-profit economic development firm.

Since 1985 they have built 20 checkdams to stabilize eight creeks flowing into the Feather River, constructed two fish ladders to allow trout to reach upstream spawning gravel; and created jobs for more than 30 people. The combined projects have brought more that $1.5 million into the local economy, Wills said.

It was Wills who conceived the idea of stabilizing Wolf Creek by recreating its natural meander. Small communities are not famous for solving their own resource problems, she said.

"Usually people get all wrapped up in fighting with each other. Then someone comes in from the outside, solves the problem, and the local people lose control," said Wills.

Determined that this would not happen to Greenville, she contacted Dave Rosgen, a well-known stream meander specialist based in Colorado. Rosgen said his goal on Wolf Creek is to lengthen the channel by building back its natural bends, and to dissipate the erosive energy of the current by rolling it from bank to bank reinforced with natural materials.

It was the display of cooperation that attracted Rosgen to the Wolf Creek project, he said.

"Here people are really working together. They will end up creating their own strong river ethic and having an ownership in Wolf Creek," Rosgen said.

Various agencies and individuals joined the alliance for Wolf Creek out of what Wills calls "enlightened self-interest:" they each get a piece that they want for themselves, and the pieces end up benefiting the whole.

The state Department of Water Resources was interested in Wolf Creek as an urban stream renewal project because it flows through the town of Greenville, said David Bogener, an environmental specialist with the agency.

"Having a project right in the middle of town is really handy. It has good educational value, lots of local ownership. People will be involved daily. They're going to see that the project is maintained," said Bogener.

PG&E regards the health of Wolf Creek and other streams above its Feather River Canyon hydroelectric facilities as a dollar figure in the company's bottom line. "Anything that helps reduce the sediment load in the watershed helps the utility company better serve its ratepayers and stockholders," said Larry Harrison, project manager for PG&E's hydro energy department.

"Educators see the Wolf Creek project as an opportunity for students to acquire skills that can earn them jobs in the real world," says Greenville High School Principal Gary Hartman. The 15 students enrolled in this year's conservation class may be eligible for summer jobs if they master specific skills related to post-construction monitoring of the stream.

"It's local and it's universal. We can help the community and also help youngsters see that the reason students exist is beyond the classroom in the world of salable skills," Hartman said.

For Hamblin, a fourth-generation native, the restoration of Wolf Creek is a restoration of Greenville. "Each cottonwood that matures from a sprout to a towering tree, each trout that finds spawning gravel, each bend that invites a tourist to break his journey beside a relaxing creek contributes to the pride of the community," he said.

"We're going to stop erosion and we're going to protect homes. This creek is going to be beautiful and peaceful again," Hamblin said.