Work will improve salmon habitat in Japanese Gulch

Published 11:05 pm Thursday, August 13, 2009

EVERETT — Workers this weekend will add gravel for spawning beds in Japanese Gulch, part of a restoration project that began last week with removal of 26.8 tons of discarded tires.

The idea, said city of Everett environmental planner Paul Crane, is “to cover the area with what was there prior to the tires being pulled.”

During the four-day cleanup Aug. 3 to 6, workers retrieved 2,700 discarded tires. About half of them will be recycled.

The rest are too rotten, said Washington Department of Ecology spokesman Larry Altose. They’ll either be shredded or used for fuel.

Six Washington Conservation Corps workers did the bulk of the cleanup work.

“Really, they did a very clean job,” Crane said. “The (creek) banks are really impacted. We’ll have to look at the site in the fall and see if there are any plantings that need to be done.”