Lake Sammamish State Park creek project aims to help salmon habitat

SEATTLE – The day begins as early as 6:30 a.m. for the contractors in orange vests and hard hats working along lower Issaquah Creek in Lake Sammamish State Park, one of Washington’s most popular state parks. Using excavators, they carefully place sturdy Douglas fir logs into the stream. These buoyant, wooden structures, half of which were salvaged from fallen trees at the Everett watershed during the November bomb cyclone, will slow the flow of water and give millions of juvenile salmon shelter as they prepare for migration.

Tor Bell, operations director at Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, said that when he and his organization surveyed the creek a decade ago, there were about 30 large pieces of wood – not nearly enough of what’s needed to make the habitat suitable for young fish. Last month, the organization began a plan to install more than 400 logs and will continue to do so through Aug. 15 – outside of migration season – as part of its in-stream restoration project in lower Issaquah Creek.

In partnership with the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission, Greenway Trust’s project aims to rehabilitate 4,600 feet of Issaquah Creek and preserve its salmon habitat – especially threatened populations like chinook salmon – both of which have long endured the adverse effects of development and climate change.

Between June and September, several areas of the park will be closed off to visitors as work on the creek happens, including the Issaquah Creek Trail, Boat Launch Trail and Homestead Trail. Paddling into Issaquah Creek from Lake Sammamish will be limited due to ongoing construction in the creek, according to Greenway Trust. Visitors may still access park playgrounds, as well as boat launches and swimming areas.

The project, Greenway Trust said, is its “most ambitious project to date” within Lake Sammamish State Park. And those who are helping the organization with the endeavor are excited to be a part of it.

“(Lower Issaquah Creek) is one of the few public access areas and green spaces on Lake Sammamish,” said Joelene Boyd, a park planner at Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission. “And so, to be able to do this restoration work and enhance salmon habitat here, it’s great because there’s not many opportunities within the system.”

Plan to combat decades of disruption

Much of Issaquah Creek was privately owned in the 1800s and 1900s, which led to major forest habitat loss, according to Greenway Trust. In the 1990s, Issaquah endured seasonal flooding and had fewer salmon in the creek, prompting local leaders to make a shared salmon recovery plan and establish the Lake Washington/Cedar/Sammamish Watershed Salmon Recovery Council in 1998. Since then, Greenway Trust has partnered with city officials, tribes, businesses and volunteers in efforts to rehabilitate the creek’s salmon habitat.

Various types of salmon pass through Issaquah Creek to get to Puget Sound and return in the fall, including chinook salmon, which are threatened under the Endangered Species Act, said Jason Mulvihill-Kuntz of the Lake Washington/Cedar/Sammamish Watershed Salmon Recovery Council. The largest salmon species of the Pacific, chinook salmon are integral to the food web and ecosystem at large, Mulvihill-Kuntz said, noting that the salmon makes up 80% of southern resident orcas’ diet.

Planning for the lower Issaquah Creek project began over 20 years ago, Bell said, with the first decade spent re-establishing streamside trees that provide shade for the creek. Bell, who is also a co-manager for the project, said these initial steps built a foundation that allowed Greenway Trust to focus on more complicated in-stream restoration work, such as placing wood structures in the creek, as well as planting more than 5,000 native trees, shrubs and vegetation to cool down the water.

Although Greenway Trust is leading the project, the organization is working together with over a dozen groups on it, seeking any feedback they may have while also updating them on the project’s progress. Among the groups is the Snoqualmie Tribe, which has lived along the shores of Lake Sammamish for millennia, according to Matt Baerwalde, a senior environmental policy analyst with the tribe’s environmental and natural resources department.

“For Snoqualmie people, Issaquah Creek has always been a really important fish-producing stream and fish habitat,” Baerwalde said. “Even through many alterations, its productivity has been somewhat negatively affected, so the tribe is really excited to support … the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust project to restore that habitat.”

Ultimately, the goal of the efforts is to make Issaquah Creek a safe place where salmon can develop and come back to as they get older.

“If we can increase their ability to do well as juvenile fish, the likelihood that they can return is higher,” said Bell. “There’s less chance of them being eaten, predated upon in the lake or other places along the way.”

Generational work

During his 23 years at Greenway Trust, Bell has watched the restoration plan come to fruition. He emphasized that this work is long term: Over the years, volunteers would come to plant trees, from western red cedar to native cottonwoods and willows, at Lake Sammamish State Park. Bell said he’s seen volunteers come back to watch their tree grow a decade later.

“This is really generational work,” Bell said. “(You don’t) just go and do one project, and it changes overnight. Trees take a long time to grow and provide those benefits. And that’s why doing this now, continuing this effort and having this as such a long-term commitment, is a really, really valuable and important reminder of why we do this work.”

With the restoration efforts happening in lower Issaquah Creek, the mission to keep the creek sustainable continues not just for salmon, but as part of Lake Sammamish State Park. The hope is that the project will lead to more salmon preservation opportunities in the future.

“I want these projects to be examples,” Mulvihill-Kuntz said. “I want people to see the work and success, and hopefully see more salmon and realize that, ‘Yeah, we want to do more of this, and we can do more of this.’ ”

And projects like the one for lower Issaquah Creek don’t just benefit salmon. By providing nourishment for them and their surroundings, it also ensures that spaces like Lake Sammamish State Park remain accessible for the millions of people who visit it each year.

“We’re also making our own human communities more sustainable over time,” Mulvihill-Kuntz said. “When we’re restoring floodplains, we’re cooling the water, we’re planting trees, we’re doing a lot of the things that we need to do to combat the effects of climate change, as well as providing more open space and access for people.”