Wood structures built as part of the Sugar project are intended to improve conditions for salmon in the Methow River, just north of Twisp.
Project near Twisp brought thousands of truck trips to Hwy 20
Sometimes, restoring salmon habitat requires a lot of dump trucks.
A half-mile north of Twisp, crews hired by the Methow Salmon Recovery Foundation (MSRF) are removing thousands of tons of dirt and fill along the Methow River, along with part of the old Sugar levee, to improve conditions for steelhead, spring Chinook and other fish species that frequent the river in that reach.
The work has brought a parade of trucks up and down Highway 20 this summer. By the time the Sugar project on the west bank of the Methow wraps up in early October, those trucks will have carried away some 1,500 loads, MSRF President Chris Johnson said.
Drivers may need to share the road with the additional traffic, but it all goes toward a safer commute for the Methow’s dwindling salmon population.
Levee removal
MSRF is trying to solve a problem created by the Sugar levee, which was damaged in the 1972 flood and then relocated to a spot farther upriver, where it wasn’t permitted, Johnson said.
The levee was intended to protect Highway 20 and some private properties downstream, but it had the opposite effect. Constrained by the levee, the river has ricocheted during high spring flows between one bank and the other, washing away 100 feet or more on private lands on both sides of the river.
Phase 2 of the Sugar project, on the Methow’s west bank, involves removing 300 feet of the 1,800-foot levee, along with fill 8 feet deep behind the levee that was originally waste material from Wagner Mill, Johnson said.
Phase 1, which began last fall, created channels in a cottonwood forest on the east bank of the river, to provide protected habitat for young fish. That phase takes advantage of seasonal floodplain channels where the river flowed after the 1948 flood.
Also included in Phase 2 are wood structures that will direct the river into side channels and the floodplain along the west bank, giving fish refuge from fast spring flows that can flush them too far downstream — especially during the higher flows that can occur about once a decade.
“When we hit a 10-year or above flow in the Methow … it runs like a jet, washing juvenile salmon too far downstream from where they need to feed and grow,” Johnson said. “You’re flushing the toilet on them.”
The structures are also meant to compensate for the loss of natural treefall into the river, which has resulted from land-clearing practices in the valley, according to MSRF’s Sugar project webpage. Tree plantings along the river, also part of the project, are intended to restore natural woody debris and provide cooling shade, to keep the river at temperatures more hospitable for fish.
Most of the levee will remain in place to serve its original purpose, protecting the highway and downstream properties.
“We didn’t diminish any protections by removing that 300 feet,” Johnson said.
Multiple projects
As for those truckloads of fill, many of them are finding homes here in the valley, Johnson said.
Some of them went to the county gravel pit, and some went across the river, to shore up the eroded bank in another part of the Sugar project. Other loads went up to the Twisp Ponds, where MSRF is working on more habitat improvements.
Money for the Sugar project is part of a larger package totaling upwards of $10 million and earmarked for several habitat restoration efforts between Winthrop and Twisp, Johnson said. The state Recreation and Conservation Office gave nearly $5 million for projects spread over 5 miles along the Methow River.
The Bonneville Power Administration contributed, as did a committee that disburses grants to mitigate the impacts of nonfederal dams in the Upper Columbia region. Additional funding came from the Okanogan Conservation District and the state Department of Ecology.
All of the work is intended to benefit steelhead, which are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act, and spring Chinook, which are endangered. Other species can see benefits too, Johnson said, including summer Chinook, cutthroat trout and resident rainbow trout.
MSRF watches the progress of the riparian plantings and the water levels in the new side channels, to ensure its projects work as planned.
But patience is required to determine whether fish populations are rebounding as a result of the millions of dollars that go into these projects — albeit against a broader trend of declining numbers caused by dams and predation.
“It can be 10 to 12 years before we’re seeing a positive or negative in terms of fish,” Johnson said.
