DESCRIPTION
North Olympic Salmon Coalition, its partners and the community addressed habitat restoration and protection on a watershed scale through the project elements of habitat survey, analysis, activity list prioritization, landowner contract, and concept development. The WRIA 19 Limiting Factors Analysis clearly identified habitat assessments as needed for all watersheds. Salt Creek was one of the few Tier 1 watersheds without a completed list of priority activities and concepts. The North Olympic Salmon Coalition contracted with Lower Elwha K’Lallam Tribe fisheries biologist Mike McHenry and GIS specialist Randall MC Coy, who completed a detailed watershed-wide habitat assessment of all potentially anadromous stream reaches in the Salt Creek watershed. The habitat survey addressed a variety of limiting factors noted across WRIA 19 while focusing on the specific needs of the Tier 1 Salt Creek watershed for habitat protection and restoration. The project addressed needs of the wild coho stock while addressing habitat loss for cutthroat, chum and steelhead.
The project's outreach efforts helped establish a sense of watershed stewardship among landowners and residents in the Salt Creek system. The Coalition and its partners (North Olympic Land Trust, Clallam Conservation District and Lower Elwha K’Lallam Tribe) co-sponsored four public meetings with watershed landowners to report on results. The Coalition also contracted ESA INC to provide detailed engineering and survey information for a high priority project to restore the Salt Creek Estuary as identified in the assessment. The Lower Elwha K’Lallam Tribe, Green Crow partnership and Washington Department of Natural Resources also initiated priority instream restoration activities in areas identified in the assessment.