Help for stranded salmon

Biologists rescue fish after creek ladder is damaged

By Brian Kelly

Herald Writer

ARLINGTON — The cornucopia wasn’t full, but the culvert was pretty crammed — with coho, fat and frustrated.

Biologists from the Stillaguamish Tribe jumped into Kruger Creek on Wednesday afternoon to rescue a cluster of stranded salmon. A fish weir in the creek next to Burn Road had been damaged by fast-moving storm water, leaving the fish unable to make it upstream past Kent Prairie Elementary School.

Instead, the salmon struggled in a culvert under 209th Street NE and the small pool on the north side of the street.

The cause? A log in a nearby man-made weir, a set of steps that help salmon move up the rising grade of the stream, had recently washed away.

"The leap was too great," said Bill Blake, environmental coordinator for Arlington, who donned waders to help save some salmon.

Rescuers blocked off a downstream part of the creek with wood pallets, then used wire mesh screens to block off the 6-foot-wide culvert so the fish could be captured. Classes at Kent Prairie Elementary had just finished, and some students watched the biologists scoop up the salmon in big fishing nets.

Seven salmon, from 6 to 15 pounds, were placed in plastic coolers filled with cold water. The salmon salvagers hoisted the coolers into the back of a pickup and took the fish to a section of the creek about 200 feet upstream, on the other side of Burn Road, and put them back in the water.

It was important to move the fish, Blake said, because the salmon had stopped trying to swim upstream and were destroying the egg nests of other salmon as they made new ones for themselves in the gravel of the creek bottom.

Fisheries workers for the tribe heard about the stranded salmon after Blake saw the fish Tuesday and called the tribe.

"He’s ubiquitous in these parts," said Jason Griffith, a biologist for the tribe.

Griffith said the section of Kruger Creek hasn’t contained salmon for many years. But last month, the tribe fixed a fish-blocking culvert just downstream. The culvert was too small and a few feet higher than the creek itself.

"They were jumping up into the culvert, but just getting blasted out," Griffith said.

Arlington had also improved a section of the creek near Pioneer Ponds, which has helped the salmon get farther upstream to spawn.

"We got them done just in time for the fish to come back," Blake said.

There’s probably 30 to 40 fish in that part of the creek now, Griffith said. The salmon run is really low, so the tribe is not taking salmon from it.

"It’s not that there’s a lot of fish, but the passage here has been improved. A lot more fish are getting past," Griffith said. "In a really big coho year, this would probably be solid fish."

But both Blake and the tribe’s workers said the fish rescue was a temporary solution and more needs to be done to improve the stream.

Griffith said the tribe is hoping to get a small grant next year to put "meanders" in the stream, which would decrease its velocity and create more spawning areas. Removing the too-small culvert might also be a solution, he said.

Blake said it was good for the schoolchildren and others to see that Kruger Creek does contain salmon. Litter and trash are common along that stretch of stream, a pop can’s toss from busy Burn Road.

"This is about one of the most hammered streams in Arlington," Blake said.

You can call Herald Writer Brian Kelly at 425-339-3422 or send e-mail to kelly@heraldnet.com.

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