Big Lake Area Fish Passage Improvement

This project restored fish passage at five stream crossings in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough (MSB) by replacing barrier culverts with fish-friendly culverts. The work provides unimpeded access to Blodgett Lake, Cloudy Lake, and three sites on OBrien Creek, restoring 48 ha of known high-quality overwintering and spawning lake habitat encompassing 7.2 km of lake shoreline and 11.6 km of stream habitat used by Chinook, coho, pink, and sockeye salmon.



This project utilized funds from PCSRF grant NA17NMF4380170; no funds from this grant were used past its end date.

This project will restore fish passage to 11.6 km of stream habitat, most of which is catalogued anadromous habitat, and 48 ha of lake habitat, allowing free and clear movement of juvenile salmonids and resident fish through each of the five crossings. Sizing the culverts to pass debris and sediment as well as water at the 100-year flood will also greatly reduce the likelihood of catastrophic road failures introducing large volumes of sediment into streams. Stream simulation crossings are more stable and less prone to bank scour, channel incision, or sediment accretion at a rate greater than the rest of the channel.