WORKING TOGETHER, WHAT HAS FOEF ACCOMPLISHED DURING THE COVID CHALLENGING 2021 FIELD WORK SEASON FOR RIVER & LAND CONSERVATION/STEWARDSHIP ON THE EAST FORK LEWIS RIVER & OTHER NEARBY WATERSHEDS!
INTRODUCTION:
FOEF members and supporters have made creative adjustments and managed to get some very important projects done this field season, despite the limitations imposed as a result of the far-reaching impacts related to the Covid 19 and Delta virus.
SUMMARY OF PROJECTS DONE BY, OR IN COLLABORATION WITH OTHERS:
⦁ We continue our work with the Dean Swanson family to finish the stacked and log cribbing stream bank emergency protection project at the Bonneville Powerline Bend crossing on the lower East Fork. It protects the road along the river, the Federally designated emergency airstrip, as well as providing much needed salmon habitat and stream bank erosion prevention. Prior to the project, over 30 feet of stream bank was lost during the last two years.
Stacked Log and Log Cribbing Treatments at Powerline Bend
⦁ Over at Manly Road Creek located just below and west of the Daybreak Bridge that crosses the lower East Fork, we continued our work of improving the salmon spawning beds and the associated juvenile salmon rearing pool that we cleaned of sediment last year. Now we have a floating juvenile fish shed to protect young salmon and emerging fry by providing both cover from predators, and also reduced direct sunlight exposure. We hope to build more of these very economical, simple, but effective floating PVC pipe sheds next year at a cost of about $140 per shed.
Floating Fish Cover Shed
⦁ Over at Salmon Creek in the Pleasant Valley Clark County Park located in North Vancouver, we designed, in collaboration with the local chapter of Trout Unlimited, a new spring fed stream channel into the upper end of a very nice salmon rearing pond built just off of Salmon Creek back in 2011. Originally when built, the construction work had inadvertently channeled the spring water into the lower end of the pond. The result was that soon after, there was no continuous water circulation in the pond and it quickly became stagnant, low on oxygen, and overgrown with slime — which made it unsuitable for rearing salmon.
The FOEF Board of Directors has a retired professional stream hydrologist and also a retired professional fish biologist who put the new inflow channel design plan together and supervised the construction of the new inflow channel into the pond. A number of businesses donated materials and the Trout Unlimited National Office provided a grant to cover other purchases of materials and rentals. All digging of the 4 ft. wide channel and related construction work was done by hand with about a dozen volunteers who ranged in age from their teens to up into their 70’s.
New Water Inflow Channel for Fish Pond
⦁ Up in the spring fed head waters of the North Fork of Chelatchie Creek, a sub-tributary of the Cedar Creek System, which is a key tributary located below the dams on the North Fork of the Lewis River, we are collaborating with and providing technical support to a large land owner to improve and expand juvenile salmon and steelhead rearing habitat. Further downstream a mile above the outlet of Cedar Creek where it enters the North Fork of the Lewis River, we are discussing with a landowner the possibility of installing gravel holding logs to increase stream spawning capacity.
Cedar Creek has an exceptional history of strong production of coho and chinook salmon as well as steelhead, and this still continues even while other streams are showing declining fish populations. The WA DFW has had two fish traps on Cedar Creek for a number of years, so a lot is known about what amount and species of fish are returning as well as what is migrating out and into the North Fork Lewis River-Columbia River System. The degraded condition of Cedar Creek of about 20 years ago was reversed thru efforts by Fish First by doing over 11 miles of fish habitat restoration, nutrient enhancement, and RSI’s (egg box installations).
Upper North Chelatchie Creek off Cedar Creek – North Fork Lewis River System
⦁ Donations in 2021 of key project materials such as large logs from PacificCorp Power at their North Fork L. R. power generating sites, and construction/ballast rock from CADMAN Materials rock quarries, as well as other donners, has been very important to our ability to do projects both large and small. Monetary donations from new members as well as institutional supporters has been a great help and allows us to be less reliant on competitive grants which often require a significant level of matching funds.
Donated Fish Habitat Project Logs
Donated Root Wad and Log Ballast Rock
⦁ Our “outreach” work with the general public and landowners to encourage and support the practice of “Good Land Stewardship” and watershed and water management, continues with land owners, other conservation groups, communities, neighborhood associations and Clark County Government.
We provided a comprehensive professional technical landscape analysis of the Hantwick Trail – WA State Dept. of Natural Resources timber sale proposal, which is helping to bring about a land swap that will provide long-term protection to the trail along the East Fork adjacent to Lucia Falls Park.
This type of effort has become even more important as Clark County continues to do limited monitoring and compliance checking of the rapid development of residential and commercial construction adjacent to and in some cases directly on sensitive or critical lands, and unique natural resource assets. Whipple Creek just north of Vancouver is a recent example of local community intervention to prevent degradation of this salmon bearing stream.
⦁ One part of our 2021 program that we were limited in what we could do because of Covid. 19 restrictions, was that with the La Center High School Conservation and Land Stewardship class. Usually in the past we would work in the field with the students to help the class on monitoring and stream analysis projects on the lower East Fork and tributaries at least once a month. Hopefully, we can resume in 2022. Also we were not able to set up and support any Eagle Scout and Healing Waters Veterans projects similar to what we have done almost every year over the last three years.
⦁ There are at least 6 active gravel and rock quarries operating in Clark County. As in the past, we work with other concerned citizen groups to monitor for compliance, environmental effects, and risks associated with ongoing and new expansion applications. Most of these are located in key watersheds or near streams with Threatened and Endangered salmon in them as well as being subject to the federal Clean Water Act.
Some, because of their past and now ongoing actions, are of more concern that others. Because of the rapid and extensive building expansion occurring in Clark County, it is expedient for County Government to imply there is a shortage of gravel and rock, and do less on monitoring and compliance enforcement — however, the facts are that many gravel trucks travel each day from Clark County over to Portland in support of Portland’s construction programs, — so whose shortage is it! In addition, some current and proposed gravel mining expansion and related activities such as heavy truck traffic, has the potential to cause un-mitigatable damage to irreplaceable natural assets in our watershed and streams. It is these assets, as well as jobs, that motivate people to move to and work in Clark County when other locations and cities can’t offer.
Clark Co. Dept. of Community Development does not have enough staff, particularly in code enforcement. Currently, there is only one code enforcement officer. The County has been negligent in enforcing conditional use permits and basic regulations regarding the operation of local gravel mines (Zimmerly-Washougal pit, Yacolt Mtn. pit, Livingston Mountain pit, etc.). County Staff has not been diligent in thoroughly reviewing development permits and analysis for SEPA decisions.
⦁ Small tributary streams that feed into the Columbia River System have been identified by Bonneville Power Columbia Basin studies as being highly valuable as a spawning and rearing source for salmon and steelhead. The WA DFW has identified Mason Creek that feeds into the lower East Fork as one of these key small tributary streams. FOEF is now working at the request of land owners along the lower reaches of Mason Creek, to come up with stream channel data and alternative project plans to repair a key section of the stream. It was heavily damaged over a year ago, when a large culvert high upstream in the watershed, backed up water, then the blocked culvert collapsed sending a very damaging flow down the stream channel. The result was loss of fish habitat in lower reaches of Mason Creek and a considerable amount of streambank damage.
Mason Creek Channel Bank Restoration Stream Reach
Your support, collaboration and suggestions with our programs is greatly appreciated, and has allowed us to continue to make progress with Friends of the East Fork program goals and objectives. We hope that together we can do even better in the coming year — the need and opportunities are there and greater than ever before.
Respectfully,
Richard Dyrland,
President, Friends of the East Fork Lewis River System, a Non-profit 501c3 Organization