2005 Instream Season is Here
By Perry Welch

Late summer can be a very exciting time of year in the salmon enhancement business. SFEG has been busy over the last several years developing projects for this year's instream season. A complex puzzle of grants, contracts, permits, construction windows, landowners, contractors, and materials has come together. SFEG anticipates completing projects in basins ranging from the Sauk River in Darrington, to the Middle Skagit River, and up into the upper Samish in Wickersham. These projects include:

  • Berry Patch Culvert Removal, (private landowner; funded by the Landowner Incentive Program of the Washington Department Fish and Wildlife (WDFW)) This project will improve fish passage by removing an old farm crossing, enhance the riparian zone, and expose spring fed system for Sauk River chum.
  • Childs Creek Large Woody Debris Placement, (private landowner; funded by Trout and Salmon Foundation, Mountaineers Foundation, and FishAmerica Foundation); install large woody debris structures, enhance riparian zone, enhance summer rearing for coho, cutthroat
  • Red Creek Large Woody Debris Placement (Upper Skagit Indian Tribe); enhance coho habitat and control sediment


Todd Woodard of the Upper Skagit Tribe oversees placement of the first “V-weir” in the Red Creek restoration project.

  • Finney Creek Logjams (Olympic Resource Management; funded by the Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SRFB), WA Department of Ecology, with assistance from the US Forest Service); Eleven new logjams will narrow and deepen the channel, reducing water temperatures
  • NP Creek Fish Passage Repair (private landowner, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, SRFB); install a pre-fabricated bridge in Wickersham on tributary to Upper Samish River; install grade control weirs, provide passage to over 1.5 miles of habitat for Samish River coho
  • Suiattle Slough Fishway Replacement, (WDFW, WA Department of Natural Resources, Skagit River System Cooperative, US Forest Service Resource Action Committee); replace an aging fishway with an outlet control weir, install rock weirs for grade control, support rearing of thousands of Sauk River coho