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Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group
P.O. Box 2497
Mount Vernon, WA 98273
EIN: 94-3165939
SFEG Online Project Map – Salmon Recovery Portal
This is an interactive tool to explore our projects and where they occurred. This map demonstrates many of SFEG’s restoration projects in our region, which includes Skagit, Island, Whatcom, Snohomish, and San Juan Counties.
Feel free to zoom into areas of interest and click on the map points to see what the projects are and to get more information. Each site has a summary page associated with it to learn more.
Featured Projects
Edgewater Park
Mount Vernon, Washington
Nestled in the heart of downtown Mount Vernon, the Edgewater Park Riparian Restoration Project has transformed 5.5 acres of degraded riverbank into thriving native habitat along the Skagit River.
Restoration efforts began with the removal of invasive species, including Himalayan blackberry, English ivy, and Japanese knotweed, clearing the way for community-driven replanting. Earth Day events in 2013 and 2014 brought together local volunteers who planted over 2,400 native trees and shrubs in just two days. To date, more than 3,660 native riparian plants have been reintroduced to the site, supported by three interpretive signs that connect visitors to the restoration story underfoot.
The park is also home to a quarter-mile side channel constructed by the City of Mount Vernon in 2005 to revive critical salmon habitat. Modeled after the historic network of channels that once defined this stretch of the Skagit, the side channel addresses generations of habitat loss caused by human activity. Monitoring has confirmed its impact: juvenile Chinook, coho, and chum salmon, along with steelhead trout, actively use the channel throughout much of the year, a promising sign for the broader Skagit salmon population and the wildlife that depends on it.
Howard Miller Steelhead Park
Rockport, WA
Since 2006, Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group has partnered with Skagit County Parks to restore and enhance fish and wildlife habitat at Howard Miller Steelhead Park in Rockport.
The effort reached a major milestone in 2012, when SFEG re-routed a small tributary back into its historic channel — recovering more than ¾ mile of stream and nearly 12 acres of wetland habitat within the park. The re-routing approximately doubled the water flowing into an existing backwater area, improving both fish access and overall water quality throughout the slough.
Ongoing invasive species removal and native replanting along the restored channel continue to improve conditions, with riparian vegetation gradually bringing the new channel corridor in line with the healthier habitat of the adjacent backwater reach.
Thatcher Bay Nearshore
Blakely Island, San Juan Archipelago
Thatcher Bay carries the legacy of a wood milling operation that ran from 1879 to 1942, and the ecological burden that came with it. Decades of sawdust and wood chip disposal in the intertidal zone left nearly 1.8 acres of valuable nearshore habitat buried under 12,900 cubic yards of mill waste, suppressing the natural processes that fish and wildlife depend on.
The damage runs deep in two distinct ways: in the upper intertidal zone, compacted wood chips completely smothered substrates where forage fish once spawned; lower in the intertidal, decomposing wood waste releases sulfide into the sediment, creating toxic conditions for benthic life.
The restoration effort tackles both problems at the source. All 12,900 cubic yards of wood waste and contaminated sediment are being fully excavated and replaced with clean, native sediments matched to the surrounding beach environment. The goal is a complete reset, eliminating sulfide contamination, reopening forage fish spawning habitat, and restoring the intertidal area to support the full range of native plants and invertebrates that make nearshore ecosystems function.
Lower Day Creek Slough
Day Creek Community, ~10 miles east of Sedro-Woolley
Thatcher Bay carries the legacy of a wood milling operation that ran from 1879 to 1942, and the ecological burden that came with it. Decades of sawdust and wood chip disposal in the intertidal zone left nearly 1.8 acres of valuable nearshore habitat buried under 12,900 cubic yards of mill waste, suppressing the natural processes that fish and wildlife depend on.
The damage runs deep in two distinct ways: in the upper intertidal zone, compacted wood chips completely smothered substrates where forage fish once spawned; lower in the intertidal, decomposing wood waste releases sulfide into the sediment, creating toxic conditions for benthic life.
The restoration effort tackles both problems at the source. All 12,900 cubic yards of wood waste and contaminated sediment are being fully excavated and replaced with clean, native sediments matched to the surrounding beach environment. The goal is a complete reset, eliminating sulfide contamination, reopening forage fish spawning habitat, and restoring the intertidal area to support the full range of native plants and invertebrates that make nearshore ecosystems function.
