Project to benefit overwintering fish habitat

A Salmon Recovery Funding Board funded project at Sullivan Pond is an opportunity to create precious .....

August 11, 2016 6:48 pm
Ruts up to three feet deep now serve as channels for several creeks. The mud hole area will be excavated into a series of ponds and access will be blocked to illegal ORV activity.
Ruts up to three feet deep now serve as channels for several creeks. The mud hole area will be excavated into a series of ponds and access will be blocked to illegal ORV activity.

A WCRI, Washington Coastal Restoration Initiative, project, at Sullivan Pond is an opportunity to create precious, overwintering fish habitat that will be constructed this August. Currently, there are only a few off channel overwintering ponds on the North Fork of the Calawah River. A section of the North Fork Calawah dries up each year, and in extreme years, about every five, the section of river where Sullivan Pond feeds the North Fork dries up as well.

During these dry periods, Sullivan Pond maintains flow providing refuge to juvenile salmonid at the pond, and also, providing life-sustaining flow to a pool in the main stem. The site was identified in 1990, as Wapiti Channel, an opportunity to increase rearing habitat by digging a channel in a stream that was running down the middle of an abandoned road grade. Currently, the road grade is all but nonexistent and the streams now run through several illegal off-road vehicles (ORV) trails.

Pacific Coast Salmon Coalition (PCSC) has partnered with Rayonier Inc. to create a pond where the historic channel has been destroyed by illegal ORV access. The ponds will be excavated right at the epicenter of ORV access. Upstream of the ponds a second, smaller stream, will be consolidated into the inlet of the pond to ensure year-round water flows. Downstream of the pond is a 300-foot channel that provides spawning habitat all the way to the Calawah River.

Along with creating vital overwintering habitat, this project will have a key outreach and education component that will address ORV access and its detriment to salmon habitat. The project will include several physical barriers along the access road on the south side of the river and several more on the north side of the river where the ponds will be constructed. Signage will be made and placed along the abandoned trail near the ponds and at the river crossing opposite the project side of the river to educate about the importance of this habitat project, the damage ORVs can cause and warn of the legal ramifications of trespassing. PCSC also will speak in public forums including local ATV club meetings, to be published at a later time.

The primary species targeted to benefit from this project are coho, steelhead, and cutthroat.