Woods Creek Culvert Coop. - 118th St. Construction

The Snohomish Conservation District (SCD) will replace the fish passage barrier on Sister of Friar Creek at river mile 0.82 located at 118th St near Monroe, WA. The undersized culvert is rated as a partial barrier at 33% passable and impedes passage for coho salmon and coastal cutthroat trout. Replacement of this culvert with an aluminum or galvanized steel box culvert will provide access to an additional 1.26 miles of habitat for anadromous fish. The road crossing is privately owned and serves six parcels.

This project is part of the Woods Creek Culvert Cooperative, a partnership between the Snohomish Conservation District, Wild Fish Conservancy, Snohomish County, and other organizations focused on implementing fish passage barrier corrections and other salmon habitat restoration project implementation in the Woods Creek sub-basin, a high priority stream of the Lower Skykomish River. Phase I of the cooperatives effort completed a fish passage barrier inventory and correction prioritization study for privately owned road crossings and replaced 4 high priority barriers in this sub-basin. This Phase II project proposes to build upon the positive impacts of previous funding awards and advance a preliminary design project funded in 2018 through final design and construction. This barrier is a Tier 2 priority in the Woods Creek barrier assessment completed by SCD and Wild Fish Conservancy; as of fall 2020, all of the Tier 1 barriers will be replaced.

Human-made fish passage barriers limit juvenile and adult access to habitat that contains valuable functions to improve health and vigor of salmonid populations, and correcting these barriers has been identified as the most important recovery action for the West Fork Woods Creek sub-basin.
The goal of this project is to correct a fish passage barrier on Sister of Friar Creek, a Tier 2 priority barrier in the Woods Creek barrier assessment completed by SCD and Wild Fish Conservancy. Once completed, this project will improve fish access to 1.26 miles of stream habitat for juvenile coho and adult and juvenile coastal cutthroat trout in a Rural Streams priority sub-basin as identified in the Snohomish River Basin Salmon Conservation Plan (2005, pages 11-58 and 11-59). Additionally, correction of this barrier will improve hydrologic processes of this cold water stream to West Fork Woods Creek, which provides cooler water during the low flow period in mid-late summer.