For those of you who plow the I-5 corridor in Snohomish County, you may have noticed a change in the scenery just off the freeway north of Everett. The dike on Union Slough (tidal tributary of the lower Snohomish River) was breached about 2 months ago, allowing tidal waters to flood unused Port of Everett land, creating a 19 acre tidal marsh.
The dike breaching was undertaken deliberately to restore some tidal marsh habitat to the lower Snohomish River for use by juvenile salmonids. I've been involved with this project for a while now, and this past weekend, we planted seedlings of native riparian vegetation just above the high tide mark.
While planting, we were surprised to see that the area is already being used by juvenile salmonids, even though the breach occurred just two months ago! We saw hundreds of juvenile chum and chinook salmon in the newly created area, as well as swarms of mysid shrimp, that the fish may have been feeding on. Its unlikely that epibenthic prey organisms (bottom dwelling critters that juvenile salmon feed on) have re-established themselves in the area yet, but the salmon were definitely using the area as a refuge and probably feeding on the mysids which were carried in by the river and tides.
We'll likely be monitoring the wetland for salmonid use, epibenthic production, and riparian growth over the next three years, and we expect more use as the wetland matures. Hopefully we can quantify the amount of juvenile salmon production that the wetland yields.
A real and unexpected victory to see this level of utilization by juvenile salmon so soon!
[ 04-09-2001: Message edited by: obsessed ]
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