Morgan Creek Fish Passage Repair
By Perry Welch

During September of 2007, SFEG succeeded in repairing a fish passage blockage on a Draper Valley Farms poultry farm on Morgan Creek. Morgan Creek is situated in the Day Creek basin off Walberg Road and the South Skagit Highway across the river from the town of Lyman. Morgan Creek is a tributary to Ross Island Slough and is situated within the middle reach of the Skagit River. The project occurs within the Day Creek Community watershed, which is one of SFEG’s Primary Focal Areas.

The project was funded by the FishAmerica Foundation with money from NOAA Restoration Center and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Community Salmon Fund. The project includes culvert replacement with a bridge and riparian planting. Much of the preliminary design and assessment work was initiated with other funding sources such as the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest’s Resource Advisory Committee and the Pacific Salmon Commission Southern Fund, which funded habitat assessment above fish passage barriers. According to this assessment, the habitat above this fish passage barrier on Draper Valley Farms Property ranked number 16 in importance for coho rearing habitat. This project enables access to 3.3 miles of habitat above the culvert. Species benefiting from the project include Chinook and coho salmon, sea run cutthroat trout, and steelhead trout. SFEG conducted a spring 2006 snorkel survey to detect juvenile salmonid presence and during this survey we observed a handful of Chinook rearing in the creek.

Because of the federal funding, this project went through extensive ESA and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance review. Since the project was in close proximity to known bull trout foraging habitat on Ross Island Slough, SFEG had to wait for dry stream bed conditions in order to construct the project without conducting a more formal nine month ESA consultation process which would have delayed the project by a year. The lower reaches of Morgan Creek usually become dry in the summer but because of our wet summer in 2007, dry conditions did not occur until the middle of September and only lasted for a short period. Fortunately SFEG was able to commence the work during the dry conditions.

The undersized culvert was replaced with a 40-foot recycled box car rack and provides landowner access to a lowland field. Prior to removal of the culvert, the crossing provided an easy target for beaver dam building. With placement of the new bridge crossing, it should be much harder for beavers to plug the lower sections of Morgan Creek. This spring, SFEG plans to install native plants along lower Morgan Creek. Next year, SFEG plans to replace another culvert barrier on Winters Creek, which is a Morgan Creek tributary south of the South Skagit Highway.

Pre-project conditions.

Post project conditions fish passage barrier replaced with bridge.