LAKE FOREST PARK – A new babbling brook meanders down its cobbled 80-foot course in the forested back yard of Rich and Launa Hoy in Lake Forest Park. It continues through a corner of the new Grace Cole Nature Park, before it joins the main channel of Brookside Creek and continues downstream to McAleer Creek. This section of stream, now navigable to salmon and trout, replaced a perched culvert through an earthen dam, which formed a backyard pond.
The Lake Forest Park Stewardship Foundation invited neighbors, public officials, funders, volunteers and the professionals who planned and carried out the Brookside Creek restoration, to share in the official opening of the new creek channel on Oct. 3. Brian Bodenbach, of Biosphere Company, worked from a plan by Arthur Fleming, of HartCrowser, to create the stream.
More than 300 hours of work by volunteers, and an in-kind donation played a part in bringing the project to fruition, said Mamie Bolander, co-chair of the Stewardship Foundation.
“Craig Ross, who lives adjacent to the Hoys, donated a 12-foot cedar log, which Bodenbach carved into a weir to regulate flow at the outlet of the pond, now reduced in size. The Jackson family across the street, who were in the process of removing hazardous trees next to the street right-of-way, donated 11 logs to be used as large woody debris,” she said.
These logs provide habitat, create a more natural look, and will be a source of organic materials as they decompose. Local tree-trimming companies provided 100 cubic yards of wood chips, which were used to stabilize the path to the work area, to protect the wetland, and to mulch the areas left bare by the earth movement necessary to create the proper grade for the stream and the correct slope to its banks.
Re-vegetation of these areas is the next step, Bolander said.
On the day Bodenbach made the final adjustments to the stream bed, one of the engineers visiting the site spotted a Giant Pacific Salamander making its way up the new stream reach, Bolander said. This surprise visitor is considered by experts to be an indicator of favorable stream conditions. It is a native inhabitant of forested streams and wetlands, but not often seen in urban areas.
A $49,000 Community Salmon Fund Grant, a collaborative effort of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and King County Water Works, made the project possible. The Lake Forest Park Stewardship Foundation will be seeking further funding to correct obstructions to migrating salmon on private property, at no cost to landowners, she said.
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