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| 8/23/2006 4:00:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article
Comment on this article | Agencies' cooperative effort spurs restoration of creek bed at refuge
By ELIZABETH LONG
Observer staff writer
PACIFIC COUNTY - For decades the old creek bed near the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge had been empty and dry.
More than 60 years earlier a gravel road had been built and the creek was redirected to a ditch paralleling the road, joined with another creek and forced through a culvert. The fish stopped coming ... During winter, the road tended to flood as the water escaped its unnatural banks.
Then earlier this month, the heavy machinery returned. But instead of trying to enforce the artificial flow, they were there to restore it with the hope that the fish, chum and coho salmon, would return.
Instead of a culvert, which poses a challenge for fish to navigate on their way upstream, two bridges were installed. One replaced the old culvert where the two creeks ran together and passed under the road. The other spanned the banks of the dormant creek, labeled Middle Stream on some surveys, but also informally called Lost Creek. The road was raised, and the earthen barrier directing the water away from its original course was broken down. The water began to flow under the bridge and out unhindered to the bay.
"The simple approach is the best one," said John Evens, vice president of NDC Timber, Inc., the company contracted to do the work. "Just put it back the way it was," he said.
The project is the culmination of a cooperative effort of a variety of groups, including the Willapa Bay Fisheries Enhancement Group, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Campbell Group, Weyerhaeuser, the Wildlife Refuge and the Nature Conservancy among others.
The project cost about $272,000 and will restore approximately three miles of creek altogether. That works out to around 6 cents a foot, quite a bargain.
"We like this project," said Ron Craig, vice president and manager of the Willapa Bay Fisheries Enhancement Group. "It's a good one."
He along with other representatives from the various groups were standing on the bridge, gazing down with satisfaction at the muddy banks of the newly-restored creek. Already the water was beginning to flow clearer, despite the disruption caused by the construction, or deconstruction as it were. Some logs lay scattered in the stream. They would form the basis of eddies and pools, prime fish habitat. With time, plants will spring up along the banks, drape over the creek and keep the water cool.
Even the fish, when they return, will help restore the creek. When they fan the bottom of the waterbed to create depressions to lay their eggs, the mud and silt will be washed up and carried away by the water. In effect, the fish will help scrub the creek clean.
As John Stenvall with the Wildlife Refuge said, "We can't lose with this one." A creek that was once lost has now been found.
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