Last week, old trees found a new home when they were set in Judd Creek, where they will improve salmon habitat.
The work, upstream from the intertidal area, is part of a joint project between King County and the Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust.
While the creek is low after the dry summer, when it rises, the water will move the tree trunks along, and pools and eddies will be created in the process.
“I think these logs will have an immediate benefit to stream health,” said Paul Adler, the project manager for King County’s Small Habitat Restoration Program, which is overseeing this project. “We’ll see improvements during the storm season.”
Healthy forest streams contain woody debris, Adler said. When left alone, the trees naturally fall in the water and provide spawning areas.
This area of the creek, however, lacked the debris.
“That is part of the ecology that is missing. People over time have taken logs out of stream. They thought it was better,” he said.
Judd Creek, home to the island’s most stable salmon runs and rare freshwater pearl shell mussels, was part of a similar project two years ago along a different stretch of the creek.
That area has already shown improvement, Adler said.
While it is difficult to count fish, volunteers have been counting that area’s invertebrates, which are considered an indicator species, just like the spotted owl is in the forest.
“We already have seen an improvement in bug scores in just two years,” he said. “That is another indication what we are doing is being effective in terms of stream health.”
Greg Rabourn, Vashon’s basin steward for King County, added that logs also provide bugs for fish to eat, creating an additional benefit.
In the area where woody debris was added two years ago, he noted that given the hot, dry summer, the pools provided cooler, deeper water, which is important for salmon.
While the latest portion of the project is finished, Rabourn said more trees will be added to the creek on an ongoing basis.
— Sarah Low also provided reporting for this story.
