North Fork ELJ

Leveraging funds received from Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office Salmon Recovery Funding, we constructed 4 Engineered Log Jam structures in the North Fork Stillaguamish River. Funds received from NWIFC PCSRF paid approximately 25% of the total cost of the 4 log jams. Initially, the project proposal for these funds indicated we would install up to 5 ELJ structures. Engineering and materials cost resulted in the installation of only 4 structures for this project.

The RCO funds from project 11-1381 originate as follows: $145,148.13 from Salmon Federal Projects, $154,151 from Puget Sound Acquisition and Restoration and $74,824.78 from sponsor match. This project was intended to fulfill the sponsor match requirement. The final totals equaled the projected ones from RCO ($299,299.13) while the matching funds totaled the $100,000 from this project, resulting in a total of $399,299.13. The match component was approximately 25% ($100,000) and therefore performance metric reporting associated with this project accounts for ¼ of the 4 structures that were placed.

The North Fork (NF) Stillaguamish headwaters begin in Skagit County, entering Snohomish County west of Darrington. It continues to flow southwesterly for approximately 46 miles to its confluence with the South Fork, near Arlington. The NF comprises nearly 41% of the watershed and is still largely in forest land, managed by the Washington State DNR and Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest. This project reach begins at River Mile 18 (Whitman Road) and heads upstream to River Mile 30 (Whitehorse Bridge). The majority of the reach is paralleled by Highway 530 and the old Burlington Northern Railway.
The NF has been modified by human activity since the turn of the 20th century. Reports from the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1870’s-1880’s show the number of full spanning jams, snags and leaning trees removed per year for navigation. Riparian logging began in the 1870’s and continued through the mid 20th century (Collins 1997). Today the NF riparian zone is a mix of grass/shrub, young deciduous and mixed deciduous and conifer (Purser & Simmonds 2008). Engineered log jams are being placed to provide complexity and habitat in the short term until riparian forests can again grow large enough to provide functional wood to the channel.
The NF is home to all five Pacific Salmonids including: Chum, Pink, Coho, Sockeye (the river spawning variety) and lastly the ESA listed Chinook salmon. Also inhabiting the reach are ESA listed Steelhead and Bull Trout. The majority of Chinook salmon spawning in the NF occurs in this reach. The historic numbers of NF spawning Chinook reached 25,000 while the current numbers fluctuate between 1000 and 1500. Many factors have lead to this decline including direct harvest, hatchery interactions with millions of Green River Chinook salmon, and lastly the degradation of habitat throughout the North Fork (Collins, 1997).
In 2005 the Tribe along with other Watershed Council members submitted a WRIA 5 Chinook Salmon Recovery Plan to NOAA Fisheries. The plan identified habitat factors limiting Chinook production as: estuary, sediment, hydrology, LWD, riparian and floodplain. This project proposal deals primarily with placement of large woody debris but has related benefits to most other limiting factors. The placement and construction of LWD jams are traditionally based on research conducted in the Queets, Hoh and other natural systems throughout the world. Wood plays an integral part in shaping river channels, storing sediment, and creating hardpoints for riparian forests to become established and continue the natural process, (Collins, Montgomery 2004, Abbe,Montgomery,Petroff, Pess 1997).
Since 1998 the Tribe has partnered in the installation of 15 ELJ’s and one 1400’ log cribwall at Steelhead Haven in the NF Stillaguamish. In 2000 the SRFB put a moratorium on the installation of engineered log jams until a five year monitoring effort convinced the legislature and the SRFB that log jams were a wise use of limited restoration dollars. After three years of monitoring, results were conclusive enough that jams were very beneficial to habitat restoration that the moratorium was lifted.
Numerous studies have been published supporting the importance of complex wood jams in shaping channel morphology, (Collins, Montgomery 2001), providing habitat for juvenile and adult salmonids, (Pess et al 2002, Senter & Pasternack 2010, Pess et al 2011). These studies showed a dramatic relationship between spawning and proximity to wood structures and pools. In 1995 and 1996 data showed 70% of redds were within 50 meters of a pool. Based on habitat and redd surveys 80% of spawning occurred in less than half the spawnable habitat. Recent research has also shown a significant increase in primary productivity associated with complex wood structures as they concentrate nutrients providing food for grazing and predatory invertebrates.