Bridges Over Barriers: Supporting Fish Habitat

Haystack Creek, with its plentiful vegetation and woody debris, has enough organic matter to delight any fish looking to spawn. Tony Peterson, who lives just outside of the city of Sultan, has always loved this creek bordering his farmland where he has a small cattle operation. 

Haystack Creek used to flood Tony’s property and the public road.

But over the years, several metal culverts underneath the gravel driveways leading to his property started to collapse from years of pressure. One culvert, rumored to be a chimney from a local school, wasn’t serving any purpose at all.

As a result, Haystack Creek began to flood Tony’s property and the neighboring public road, and very few fish were able to make their way through. It was time for a change, so Tony turned to us for help.

Our Habitat and Floodplains Team thought of a solution to reduce flooding and improve passage for salmon: bridges instead of culverts.

“These bridges allow a greater capacity of water to flow and more daylight to reach the stream than the culverts did, while also ensuring a much safer passage for salmon,” said Senior Habitat Project Manager, Carson Moscoso, who managed the Haystack Creek project. 

And it worked. The project increased salmon habitat by 2.6 miles. Tony can now enjoy watching salmon move effortlessly under his bridges along Haystack Creek without worrying about what the next rain will bring.

Restoring Haystack Creek also increased the benefits of previous restoration projects downstream. If you follow its meandering path, you’ll find that it drains into Tychman Slough and eventually makes its way to the Skykomish River. In 2016, we partnered with Sound Salmon Solutions to install salmon-friendly plantings along six acres of old agricultural land along the slough.

The salmon move effortlessly underneath the bridge, and Tony doesn’t have to worry about future flooding.

The plantings help create a corridor of the three important C’s for salmon habitat: cool, clean, and clear water. Sound Salmon Solutions replaced invasive blackberry bushes with native vegetation, providing shading to keep the water temperature from rising to dangerous levels for salmon while also helping filter out pollution before it can enter the stream. The roots of native vegetation and woody debris slow the flow of water which provides vital refuge for juvenile salmon and keeps sediment in place, leaving the water clear.

“The habitat benefits from the planting project will increase now that connectivity on Haystack Creek has improved due to the bridge project at Tony's,” Carson said.

We can’t forget about the importance of these waterways—Haystack Creek is just one part of a much larger network of waterways that provide habitat for salmon. As development and changes in climate cause increases in flooding, habitat that provides salmon with refuge during heavy rain events is especially important.

This project not only restores salmon habitat, it also improves public road access during flood events and reduces public and private costs of repetitive flood damage. Our district led the design, permitting, and construction for this project, but we enlisted the help of several partners to make it a reality. Thank you to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Family Forest Fish Passage Program, Washington State Conservation Commission, Department of Ecology, and Floodplains by Design for their work on this project.