Ryan Vasak walks along the service road in his rubber boots and Carharts, topped off with a pair of polarized sunglasses and a down vest for the chilly, yet sunny Pacific Northwest morning. He has walked here many times before, out to a wooden dam at Lake Terrell just beyond Ferndale. This structure is 2 meters tall, but holds back a 550-acre lake.
More importantly, the dam controls the amount of water flowing into Terrell Creek, which is home to chum and coho salmon. At least, it used to be.
Water rushes over the dam as Vasak crosses the bridge in front of it to demonstrate the focus of his nearly complete graduate studies at Western: two PVC pipes channel water over the dam and into Terrell Creek. This simple, scrappy siphon – something Vasak said he threw together in a few hours – could bring salmon back to their native spawning grounds. When combined with the efforts of a local nonprofit environmental organization, an oil refinery and a group of dedicated volunteers, Terrell Creek could one day be a model of successful salmon restoration.
In the late 1940s, Washington’s Department of Fish and Wildlife purchased four dairy farms around the headwaters of Terrell Creek and installed a dam, creating what is now Lake Terrell. This 9-foot-deep lake provides habitat for local and migrating waterfowl such as ducks, snow geese and swans. The lake is also a popular recreation area for bird watching, boating, fishing and hunting.
The creation of Lake Terrell was not without consequences. The dam restricts precious water flow during the driest months of the year, disrupting an already shallow and slow stream. Accurate data is not available to determine if Terrell Creek used to dry up in the summer, but salmon once did spawn in the creek and now they are gone. Residents of Birch Bay – where Terrell Creek empties into Puget Sound – once fished for spawning chum and coho, and for their close cousins steelhead and cutthroat trout. Last year, volunteer surveyors spotted only three coho spawning in the creek. No chum or cutthroat were found.
No water, no fish.
On any given day, Tom Reed can be found somewhere around the shores of Lake Terrell. His house sits 100 yards from the lake and his office, which is decorated with stuffed waterfowl, is part of the garage. Reed has managed this watershed since 1972, and works to keep the lake pristine for visitors, winged and tourist alike.
Two years ago, Reed collaborated with Vasak to install the siphon. Since the lake is Reed’s main priority, he was originally hesitant to release any water during the dry summer months. Lower lake levels could provide noxious weeds, such as purple loosestrife and reed canary grass, an opportunity to invade the fragile wetland area. Still, he took a chance and agreed to let the project continue.
That first summer, the goal of the project was to determine if releasing water from the lake would create consistent flow through Terrell Creek, connecting the dots of dry spots with life-sustaining water. Vasak said he did not measure the amounts of water he released, but visually checked sections of the stream for results. He also watched the lake to see how his experiment affected the water level.
The first stage of the experiment was a success: Dry spots disappeared and water flow was attained without drastically lowering the level of the lake.
This past summer, the goal was to determine the lowest possible flow rate of the siphons while maintaining a minimum flow in the creek. It required a classic high school word problem: If it takes Vasak 7.5 seconds to fill a five-gallon bucket with water from the siphon, how much water will Vasak have after one minute? (Answer: 40 gallons.)
With this low-tech but effective system, Vasak measured the flow of water moving through the twin-valve siphon. He started with 40 gallons per minute and checked the creek for continuous water flow. No change.
"Forty gallons per minute is nothing. It looks like a small trickle," Vasak said. "Well-pumps pump more than that."
He then ratcheted the valves up to 60 gallons per minute and checked the creek again. This time, water flowed throughout the whole creek; minimum flow was reached.
"So what that told me right off the bat is that there’s not a lot of water coming into the creek from other sources, if just 20 gallons more per minute actually allows for surface flow throughout the whole creek," he said.
Continuous stream water flow is vital for the survival of coho salmon because they spend approximately 18 months maturing in fresh water before migrating to the ocean. Chum, on the other hand, spend one to two weeks in a stream before migrating downstream to an estuary, where they develop into adults. Because coho spend so much time in the creek their success will signify the overall success of restoration in Terrell Creek.
"[Coho] are a pretty good indicator for the health of the stream," Vasak said. "If they’re there, then the cutthroat ought to be able to be there as well."
Water supply is not the only problem plaguing Terrell Creek. Though spawning fish now have enough water to wiggle their way upstream in the summertime, large sections of stream habitat are still overrun with reed canary grass. This invasive, noxious weed poses a serious threat to wetland and streamside ecosystems throughout Washington. The grass grows so quickly – up to 6 feet in a single growing season, according to the Washington state Department of Ecology – and densely it chokes competing native vegetation. Its thick root system catches small silt particles that fill in stream channels and gravel beds, which are prime spawning grounds for salmon.
As reed canary grass encroaches on a stream channel, it transforms the four-lane fish highway into a one-lane dirt road with no shoulder, turning the green and diverse streamside scenery into a desert.
"It makes a pretty formidable opponent if you’re a small tree trying to gain some footing in that area," said Rachel Vasak, Ryan Vasak’s wife and program coordinator for the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association (NSEA), an environmental non-profit focusing on restoring wild salmon runs in Whatcom County. "The only way that we can effectively get rid of reed canary grass is to shade it out."
In 2000, NSEA began surveying the stream habitat and counting the number of smolt, or young salmon, leaving the creek. This data was then used to identify areas in most need of restoration.
The section surrounding the Jackson Road crossing was quickly identified as the top priority for restoration. Here the creek meanders through a 40-foot-wide depression that consistently floods during rainstorms. At the time, it was so degraded that the stream channel was choked with reed canary grass, Rachel Vasak said.
In 2003, NSEA began restoring streamside habitat along the Jackson Road section. This meant manually removing reed canary grass and planting native trees and shrubs. To date, Rachel Vasak estimates that NSEA has installed 20,000 plants along Terrell Creek at a cost of approximately $60,000, which is more than half of the $100,000 project price tag.
Much of this work would not have been possible without the support of British Petroleum Cherry Point oil refinery, which owns the section of Terrell Creek upstream from the Jackson Road bridge. If politics creates strange bedfellows, then so does salmon restoration.
"We have identified that we want to continue restoration on our property," BP Environmental Supervisor Elizabeth Daly said. "I give [NSEA] $20,000 a year and we pay for maintenance on projects we have done."
Going into its fifth year of restoration work, the refinery also collects runoff water from its site and channels it into numerous wetland ponds that surround Terrell Creek. This water then filters into the groundwater and helps recharge low summertime flow.
The money from BP and other sources also funded improvements to in-stream habitat along the Jackson Road section. NSEA paid a contractor $20,000 to place large woody debris in the creek. Though these squarely cut logs give the creek a manicured, amusement park look, they create much-needed pools and riffles in the creek. Riffles are areas of the stream where ripples form on the surface of the water, which are prime spawning areas for salmon. Such riffles sound like a soothing ‘babbling brook’ soundtrack and act as aerators, increasing the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water.
"Pools tend to have finer sediment whereas the riffles tend to have coarser sediment, which is what [salmon] need for spawning," said Leo Bodensteiner, an environmental science professor at Huxley College of the Environment. "So that provides habitat for the eggs."
Rather than wait for salmon to slowly repopulate the stream, a group of volunteers called the Chums of Terrell Creek are sponsoring a salmon incubator to augment the chum population. Each winter for the past three years, the group places 50,000 chum eggs in a black plastic container that resembles a 55-gallon oil drum located at the base of the dam at Lake Terrell. A small tube connects to the top, supplying running water from the dam, and a similar tube drains water at the base. Smolts mature in the incubator and are later released into Terrell Creek.
Since chum do not spawn until their third or fourth year of maturity, salmon released from the first incubator three years ago are expected to return to spawn this winter or next.
"I can hardly wait for those first fish to come back," said founding Chum group member Elie Friedlob of Birch Bay. "Those first fish will be really powerful [for the community]."
The Chums of Terrell Creek also focus on connecting the community to salmon restoration and organizes work parties for NSEA tree planting events. Last summer the group marched in the Birch Bay Discovery Days parade with a 17-foot-long salmon made from scrap metal and chicken wire.
"It makes the restoration that much more successful when it’s connected to the community," Friedlob said. "Restoring salmon is so much bigger than Terrell Creek. Restoring our salmon is really restoring our community."
In the meantime, Ryan Vasak said he is in the writing stage of his study and hopes to graduate this spring. But his involvement with Terrell Creek will not end there.
"You can put water in the creek, but if it’s not suitable, then what’s the point?" he said.
To the dedicated group of people who want to see Terrell Creek lined with native trees, filled with gravel spawning beds, and full of cool, running water, the daunting task of restoring wild salmon runs to this tiny creek is worth every day of effort.
"We can’t say we didn’t try," Rachel Vasak said. "Some days are two steps forward, one step back. Some days are ten steps forward, no steps back. Other days are more steps back than not."