Woods Creek Culvert Replacements Cooperative

Snohomish Conservation District partnered with Snohomish County and Wild Fish Conservancy to restore unimpeded fish passage to approximately 3.1 miles of valuable spawning and rearing habitat for ESA-listed Chinook salmon, steelhead trout, and bull trout, and other salmonids by replacing 5 prioritized fish passage barriers in the Woods Creek sub-basin complex. The County replaced a county-owned culvert on the East Fork of Woods Creek. Snohomish Conservation District (SCD) replaced two livestock bridges with passable bridge structures on Richardson Creek, and Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC) replaced two culverts and realigned one pedestrian bridge on private property (note: the pedestrian bridge was not an is not a barrier to fish passage) on Richardson Creek; all new structures meet WDFW fish passage guidelines. These actions improved sub-basin hydrologic and sediment processes, cited by the 2005 Snohomish River Basin Salmon Conservation Plan as a first-tier priority action because hydrologic and sediment processes create and sustain high quality habitat over the long term. Wild Fish Conservancy and Snohomish Conservation District leveraged the County culvert construction funding as match to advance these fish passage improvements in the Woods Creek basin. This subbasin-scale, coordinated and cooperative approach has achieved habitat gains faster and more efficiently by leveraging public resources to implement recovery actions on private lands as well as in the public right of way.

This project funded design, permitting, and construction of the five fish passage barrier replacements (grant funding was not used for the County-led barrier replacement, but County costs were used as match and contributed to the total project cost). Work types included cultural resources compliance, restoration/construction (fish passage improvement of bridges/culverts), engineer designs (conceptual through final), and permitting (preparing permit applications and permit fees). The project restored fish access to 2.3 miles of Richardson Creek (a tributary to Lower Woods Creek) and 0.8 miles of unnamed tributary 7.0841, a tributary to East Fork Woods Creek. These fish passage improvement project sites are located in the Woods Creek sub-basin; Richardson Creek is located in the Lower Woods Creek sub-basin which is identified as Mainstem - Secondary Restoration strategy group in the WRIA 7 Snohomish Watershed Salmon Conservation Plan (2005); the unnamed tributary 7.0841 is located in the \Woods Creek sub-basin which is identified as a Rural Streams - Secondary Restoration strategy group. For both these sub-basin strategy groups, fish passage improvement is identified as either second-tier or third-tier priority restoration actions (where no second-tier priorities were identified).

Funds from PCSRF FY14 were spent within the award window since, although this project was completed outside of that award with FY17 funds.

Restore unimpeded fish passage to approximately 3.1 miles of valuable spawning and rearing habitat for ESA-listed Chinook salmon, steelhead trout, and bull trout, and other salmonids by replacing 5 prioritized fish passage barriers in the Woods Creek sub-basin.