Dosewallips Wolcott Flats & Rocky Brook Planning

Jefferson County produced a Resiliency Plan and a preferred conceptual design to restore habitat for Hood Canal Summer Chum and Mid Hood Canal Chinook in the Rocky Brook Reach of the Dosewallips River. Flows projected though 2080 were modeled and conceptual designs developed consistent with Manual 18 and landowner willingness. The project achieved three linked objectives: 1) Surveyed the reach and described current and historical conditions, human-caused changes to the large wood cycle and alternations to channel migration, river planform, and side channels. 2) Exchanged information with landowners individually, at neighborhood meetings and through meetings of the Dosewallips River Collaborative throughout the project, and 3) Developed conceptual designs for engineered log jams and recommendations for replanting and invasive species control with participating landowners to improve habitats for spawning, rearing and migration by improving sediment transport, pool formation, in-channel habitat complexity at flows typical for targeted life histories for chinook and summer chum salmon. Information gathered was used in combination with the new physical habitat assessment and 2D hydraulic model to generate CMZ and other maps.

The overarching, longer-term goal of this project is to restore natural floodplain and channel migration zone functions and processes in the Rocky Brook Reach of the Dosewallips River and to increase the quantity and quality of spawning and rearing habitat for ESA-threatened Puget Sound Chinook and Hood Canal Summer Chum salmon along 2.4 miles of main channel, 1.4 miles of side channel, and within 200 acres of floodplain. The Rocky Brook Resiliency Plan describes existing geomorphic and habitat conditions, history of human uses and changes, and provides a concept for Phase I restoration in the lower reach in cooperation with two private landowners, Jefferson County and, to the degree necessary, Washington State Parks.