By Former SFEG Restoration Ecologist Susan Madsen
Silver Creek with undersized culverts before the restoration project
In the Silver Creek neighborhood fall is a season that brings both an end and a new beginning. Like most Pacific Nor’westers, we tire quickly of hot temperatures and cloudless skies. By late August the trees seem wilted, and the creeks are dry and parched. However, the end of summer and October rains are right around the corner, and silver salmon follow hard on their heels. Folks in this neighborhood have always paid attention to the salmon. One longtime resident swears they return for the Marine Corps birthday on November 10, and indeed spawning seems to peak just then. And since 2013, we have all had an even greater appreciation for this circle of life. That summer, SFEG and the Family Forest Fish Passage Program (FFFPP) helped the Sliver Creek neighborhood association as well as several private landowners to replace undersized culverts with fish-friendly structures at three stream crossings. Bridges were constructed on two driveways over Silver Creek and its major tributary, which locals have come to call East Fork Silver Creek. And a large culvert was installed where the main road into the community crosses a smaller tributary that was dubbed Bridle Creek. That fall, all of the neighbors gathered for a ribbon cutting and tour of the bridges, and waited eagerly for salmon to return. And soon they did. The projects were an immediate success, with salmon observed upstream of the road on Bridle Creek for the first time.
This work paid off not only in 3.5 miles of newly accessible spawning and rearing habitat for fish, but also in bringing together the neighborhood and providing a great example of how important private fish passage projects are. Residents continue to watch the streams and call in when the first adult salmon are spotted in the fall. Volunteer surveyors regularly walk these streams each fall as part of SFEG’s volunteer spawner survey program. In 2020, dozens of coho salmon were observed in these small streams. The projects also provide an opportunity for kids to see wild salmon during SFEGs Junior Stream Stewards watershed tour each fall. And property owners who participated in the FFFPP program act as ambassadors, sharing their positive experience working with SFEG and the FFFPP program with others. To date SFEG and FFFPP have assisted 14 private landowners improve fish passage in the Skagit and Samish watersheds, with two more on tap for 2022.
Silver Creek post construction, with the new bridge
Improving fish passage to facilitate better access to existing habitat is the most cost-effective means of restoring salmon habitat. There are currently thousands of undersized stream crossings that represent barriers to salmon migration in Washington State. State and local governments have been making a concerted effort to address the issue over the past decade. Private timberland owners were required to assess and improve fish passage barriers on their lands by 2015, and were generally successful in that effort. Yet replacing problem crossings with structures that meet current WDFW fish passage standards is expensive, and can exceed the means of private landowners. That is where SFEG and programs like the Family Forest Fish Passage Program, Brian Abbott Fish Barrier Removal Board or National Fish Passage Program can help. If you have an undersized culvert on your property, we may be able to help. Contact Kristin Murray at kmurray@skagitfisheries.org or 360-336-0172 ext 302 for more information. We will visit your site, provide information on possible solutions, and hopefully match you up with a funding program that may be available to help. Give us a call today!
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