DESCRIPTION
Benefit for natal coho, chum, and cutthroat, as well as non-natal Chinook. Phase V of the project would daylight the creek mouth and create a pocket estuary. Project would require replacement of approximately three fish-blocking culverts under the abandoned tank farm, the BNSF railroad tracks, and Mukilteo Boulevard. Earlier phases of restoration addressed instream barriers in the creek and have resulted in adult fish returning to the system despite the long culverts currently connecting the creek to Puget Sound.
The City of Mukilteo will produce preliminary designs and initiate permitting to daylight and restore the mouth of Japanese Gulch Creek and create a pocket estuary to transition the creek to the beach. The project is located along the City of Mukilteo waterfront in Snohomish County on a portion of the former US Air Force Tank Farm. The project will restore estuarine rearing habitat and improve stream access for multiple salmonid species, including Chinook, coho, and chum salmon. The creek mouth daylighting is the fifth and final planned phase of restoration in the creek and would improve fish access to productive habitats improved by the earlier restoration. Currently, salmon accessing the creek have to swim through a 1,400-foot long pipe to reach the creek and recent monitoring of earlier phases of restoration indicates that some salmon do spawn and rear in the creek. The restoration will provide productive pocket estuary habitat for juvenile salmon migrating along the shoreline, including Chinook salmon that Beamer et al. (2006) and Beamer et al. (2013) documented as using estuaries and freshwater habitats of non-natal streams.
