DESCRIPTION
This action will restore instream habitat conditions and floodplain connectivity with strategic wood placements designed to increase channel complexity and restore natural stream grade control. Limited wood placements to increase channel complexity could be implemented in the short term; however, such an approach would not restore habitat-forming processes. Short term efforts to enhance habitat conditions should focus on localized areas where the channel has eroded into the terrace surface and a small inset floodplain is developing. A more holistic approach to process-based restoration will require substantial volumes of wood to reverse the effects of past incision and restore floodplain connectivity. Multiple houses are located within the stream corridor along the left bank and pose constraints to restoration of reach-scale processes through this segment. Restoration of riparian processes will require removal of bank armor and revegetation of the riparian forest. The long term approach to restoration of the stream corridor through this segment will require coordination with willing landowners in negotiating conservation easements and/or acquisition of 12-15 properties between Chico Way NW and Northlake Way NW. Land acquisition will be complicated by the need to coordinate with numerous landowners. Acquisition of key parcels to facilitate restoration is estimated at approximately $1.5 M based on 2012 tax records.
Habitat conditions are degraded from past impacts that have resulted in an incised channel lacking in wood and characterized by low channel complexity with few pool habitats. The geomorphic response to channel incision includes a tendency to widen and erode channel banks. This response, which is the process by which the stream would restore habitat-forming processes in the absence of further disturbance, is constrained by residential development and bank armoring practices to protect infrastructure that has encroached into the stream corridor (Figure 53). One house located along the left bank near the confluence with Kitsap Creek was destroyed in response to bank erosion during the December 2007 flood. Two other properties in this reach were sites of bank protection projects funded in part by the NRCS Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) and Kitsap County.
