Strengthening Partnerships and Coordination of Elwha Restoration and Monitoring Activities

Projects as large and complex as the Elwha Restoration Project are best accomplished when numerous individuals and agencies work together. These collaborative partnerships don’t occur by chance---they take significant effort by all those involved in the project. Recent staff changes at Puget Sound Partnership (PSP), the Washington State agency tasked with coordinating restoration and protective activities in Puget Sound, provided an opportunity for agency staff to further strengthen interagency partnerships and collaboration. Duane Fagergren recently became the new PSP lead for the Strait of Juan de Fuca region. In an effort to learn about the Elwha Restoration Project and begin to forge relationships, Duane contacted several individuals from the agencies involved with Elwha River restoration and monitoring, including Roger Peters (U.S.Fish and Wildlife Service biologist) and Jeff Duda (U.S. Geological Survey ecologist).


Roger Peters (left) and Jeff Duda on Altaire Bridge

Roger and Jeff took Duane on a field trip to multiple monitoring sites on the Elwha River to provide an on-the-ground perspective of the Elwha restoration progress focusing on science, monitoring, and related issues. They visited sediment monitoring sites at Altaire Bridge (where suspended sediment below the Glines Canyon Dam project is being monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), National Park Service, and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation) and the water diversion where USGS is monitoring turbidity in the mainstem of the Elwha River (see webcams). They also visited multiple sites designed to monitor the movements of juvenile fish that are among the first group of recolonizers to portions of the watershed that haven’t seen anadromous salmonids in nearly a century. These sites included a screw trap operated by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe that is used for monitoring outmigrating juvenile salmon on Little River and a PIT tag recording station operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Indian Creek that also monitors recolonizing juveniles. 

Stumps cut during construction of the Elwha Dam are being
uncovered as sediment from Lake Aldwell erodes and is
transported downstream. Based on this picture, the current
floodplain level is likely close to the original floodplain level.

They then visited the former reservoir bottom and delta area of Lake Aldwell where the former lake bed is being transformed into a functioning floodplain river, a salmon-rearing channel created by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), and a site where the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe has installed a series of engineered large woody debris jams to create fish spawning and rearing habitat. Finally, the group visited the Elwha estuary and beaches east of the river mouth. There numerous groups are studying the physical and biological changes to the ecosystem caused by the removal of the dams. At low tide, the physical changes to the beaches and submarine delta were apparent since sediment released from the former reservoirs has already moved to the coastal areas.

Accumulated small wood that has been deposited
along the Elwha nearshore after being released from
Lake Mills and Lake Aldwell after dam removal

Throughout the day, the three discussed the issues relevant to research and monitoring, particularly those projects that will contribute to a better understanding of how the restoration of the Elwha River and its salmon populations unfolds.  “A strong working relationship between the Puget Sound Partnership and those of us on the ground can only help, as we both are striving to learn as much as we can about the possibilities to recover ecosystem structure and functions that are relevant to Puget Sound,” said Jeff.

According to Duane, “This was one of the most informative and enjoyable days I’ve spent in my career working at the Puget Sound Partnership and its predecessor agencies. Roger and Jeff helped me understand the enormity of the system and the dynamic forces at work in the Elwha. The important work we all do benefits by forging personal relationships like this, and important resources like Chinook salmon in the Elwha will hopefully benefit from our cooperative, collaborative effort". Duane plans to meet with others working on the Elwha restoration effort, including individuals from NOAA, WDFW, Olympic National Park, and the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe in the near future.

Duane Fagergren (left) and Jeff Duda discuss changes in the
Elwha nearshore. This picture was taken at low tide from the
Lower Elwha Klallam Reservation, east of the Elwha River
mouth and facing Freshwater Bay and Observatory Point.

 

Lake Sammamish Kokanee Partner Celebration



Lake Sammamish kokanee fry

On April 19, 2012, citizens and partners in Lake Sammamish kokanee conservation gathered at Hans Jensen Park in Issaquah, WA to commemorate another successful year of the kokanee supplementation program. This year over 60,000 kokanee fry will be released, which is more than the past two years combined. The juvenile kokanee that are just a few inches long are primarily released at night; however, a few were released at the event to mark the success of this year’s efforts.


Releasing kokanee fry into
Laughing Jacobs Creek

Lake Sammamish kokanee, a landlocked form of sockeye salmon, have greatly declined in recent years and were petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act in 2007. Although the USFWS has determined that the species does not warrant listing, we continue to work with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), King County, local city governments, Trout Unlimited, Snoqualmie Tribe, and other local entities to rebuild its native population.  



Event attendees

Key elements of the Lake Sammamish kokanee strategic habitat conservation effort include protecting and restoring spawning habitat, reducing kokanee mortality in Lake Sammamish, and providing fish passage in tributary streams. The USFWS has provided funding and technical support for both short-term (supplementation program) and long-term (restoration) efforts and is designed to support these efforts for three kokanee generations (12 years). The supplementation program includes collecting wild spawners and using an innovative system of recirculating incubators at Issaquah Creek State Hatchery to increase egg-to-fry survival rates and maximize imprinting to natal streams.


Robyn Thorson, USFWS

Speakers at this year’s event included Dow Constantine, King County Executive; Robyn Thorson, USFWS Pacific Regional Director; Jim Scott, WDFW Assistant Director; and elected officials from Bellevue, Issaquah, Redmond, and Sammamish.

Click here to see a video of the fry release event.
 

Skeleton of the Old Power Plant

The area of Renton, Washington, near Lake Washington has undergone numerous changes over the past 10 years.  One of these changes was the removal of the old Shuffleton Power Plant and its replacement with apartment buildings. Today, about the only thing left of the old power plant is a massive 656-foot-long metal flume which runs along the south shore of Lake Washington and is slowly rusting away. In addition, the flume is only about 1,600 feet from the mouth of the Cedar River, an important natal stream for anadromous salmonids. During plant operation, the flume served as the outflow for water from the power plant.

From January to April, large numbers of Chinook salmon fry leave the Cedar River and rear in the south end of Lake Washington. These fish prefer non-armored shorelines with sand and gravel substrates that have both open beaches and areas with riparian vegetation which provide woody debris and overhanging vegetation.  Unfortunately, the old flume has little of these habitat characteristics. 


Preferred habitat conditions--open beach (left) and riparian vegetation (right)--of
juvenile Chinook salmon in south Lake Washington


Chinook salmon are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and resource managers in the Lake Washington area have been looking for shoreline areas that can be restored. The flume is an obvious choice because it is a large structure close to the Cedar River and is owned by Washington Department of Natural Resources (WDNR).

Juvenile Chinook salmon at night
in Lake Washington

Removal of the flume and other shoreline improvements will occur in late summer of 2011 or 2012.  From January to June 2011, our office will be working with WDNR to conduct snorkel surveys to gather information on juvenile Chinook salmon use under pre-restoration (current) conditions. Surveys are done at night when juvenile Chinook salmon are easier to observe and count accurately. The surveys are being done in three areas: (1) Along the flume wall; (2) an adjacent shoreline that will also be improved; and (3) nearby shoreline in Gene Coulon Park that will serve as a control site. Additional monitoring will occur after the restoration activities have been completed.

Ohop Creek Fish Rescue

About 100 years ago, farmers in the Ohop Valley dug a large ditch along the valley wall to contain Ohop Creek, a tributary to the Nisqually River, to develop grazing land for dairy cattle.

On August 11, approximately 30 people from the Nisqually Land Trust, Nisqually Tribe, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Stream Stewards, Washington Conservation Corps and Mason County Conservation District gathered for a fish rescue operation at Ohop Creek near Eatonville, WA.

We restored 1.2 miles of Ohop Creek to its natural condition through a concerted effort from the agencies listed above.

We started collecting fish in the 1/3 of a mile of the ditch using electroshockers, dip nets and seines, then transferring the fish to a large holding tank. Once the fish were collected they were taken to the restored creek where the fish were identified, enumerated, measured and released. We found Coho fry, lamprey, dace, crawfish, sculpins, fresh water mussles, large scale sucker, and some non-native warmwater fish.