Log airlift helps improve habitat for young salmon

SULTAN, Wash. — Juvenile salmon that need hiding places in slow-moving streams got some help on Wednesday, when a state Department of Natural Resources helicopter dropped dozens of logs and tree stumps along a side channel off the Sultan River.

The Adopt-A-Stream Foundation asked for DNR help with the project since trucking the wood debris into the area would have required carving trails through ecologically sensitive terrain, said Tom Murdoch, the group’s director.

“We just got these new helicopters, and we needed to use them for training, so their call came at the perfect time,” said DNR spokesman Todd Myers.

In all, the helicopter crew plucked more than five dozen logs and tree trunks from a park, where the wood had been stored over the winter, and dropped them along the banks of the channel.

The crew used fluorescent orange markers on the ground as guides during 61 airlifts.

“DNR did an excellent job of hitting their targets,” Murdoch said.

It was as big a help to DNR as it was for efforts to restore salmon habitat, said Doug Sutherland, state lands commissioner.

“This is a wonderful project, not only because it will improve salmon habitat, but it also gives our pilots an opportunity to train for what cold be a very tough wildfire season,” Sutherland said.

In a separate part of the project, funded by the sport fishing group Fish America Foundation, 1,000 hemlocks, cedars and Douglas firs have been planted along the side channel to provide shade that helps keep water temperatures cold so salmon can survive.

This winter, another 1,000 trees will be planted along the banks of this side channel in the Cascade foothills west of Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Murdoch said.

Crews will anchor the logs dropped on Wednesday so they don’t float downstream during flood season, Murdoch said.

Other agencies involved in the project include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the City of Sultan and the Snohomish County Public Utility District.