This project plans to recover and enhance one of the few remaining pieces of off-channel habitat in the upper Skagit River for the primary benefit of native coho (SASSI depressed stock) and chum salmon. It will include both rearing and spawning area. It will consist of a large pond area excavated into groundwater with spawning gravel (spawning and rearing) to feed an abandoned river slough (rearing) altered or lost due to bank hardening activities, construction of Highway 20, and operation of the Skagit hydro project. These activities have reduced channel forming processes preventing natural river meander and the old off-channel sites, significantly reducing critical habitat needed by these species. Recovery and enhancement of the few remaining areas with these characteristics will immediately restore their high production capability. No longer at great risk of flooding, these sites operate solely on the continuous even flow of groundwater protecting wintering eggs and fry from storm scour and siltation and summer juveniles from stranding loss far greater than most surface-fed streams. Identical projects of like size (7500 m2) in this river reach have quickly produced fish in virtual excess of their capacity. Immediate recovery efforts like this are needed to rebuild reduced populations while longer-term upslope and land management improvements become effective.
