Olympic Resources: Restoring salmon and steelhead habitat on the Washington Coast
On one of his first visits to Ziegler Creek, a tributary of the Quinault River watershed on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, TU’s Luke Kelly remembers finding a Sockeye salmon stuck in the pool below the large culvert blocking access to the creek’s high-quality spawning and rearing habitat upstream.
Only a few watersheds on Washington’s coast have native Sockeye populations, and the treasured fish from the Quinault River are known regionally as “blue backs.” The blocked salmon was a perfect illustration of why the barrier had been identified by Kelly and his Cold Water Connection Campaign partners as a high priority to remove.
Getting to work
TU worked closely with Forest Service staff to design the restoration project and raise funds. When the time came to get to work at the site, they turned to Mike Nelson, the owner of Olympic Resources, a small family-owned contractor based on Washington’s coast.
Nelson and his team skillfully removed the failing metal pipe, decommissioned the old road crossing, placed large wood in the stream and restored Ziegler Creek’s banks.
Soon afterwards, local community members found salmon spawning upstream for the first time in decades. Today, juvenile salmonids can be found holding in the log jams accumulating where the culvert had once prevented salmon, steelhead and cutthroat trout from reaching their historical habitat.
Local contractors make restoration possible
Every restoration project is a puzzle involving extensive planning, rigorous permits and funding applications. Careful engineering is often required, especially when bridges and road infrastructure are involved. Implementing this work on the ground requires deep knowledge of the watersheds and landscapes where the projects occur. Nelson’s Olympic Resources is a perfect example of the talent and dedication that exists in Washington coastal communities.
For generations, the lush rainforests and huge trees on Washington’s coast have supported extensive logging, but technological shifts and evolving timber practices have meant that fewer jobs are now available. As land management approaches and philosophies have shifted, and the need to rebuild struggling salmon and steelhead populations has only grown, state and federal investments in habitat restoration and improved fish passage have created important opportunities for local contractors to expand their scope of work.
Mike Nelson has spent his life working, hunting and fishing in the forests and rivers of the Olympic Peninsula. His family has been living and working on the coast since the early 20th century. Some years, work on culvert replacements or large wood installations might represent half of his company’s jobs.
“We’re a small contracting company based in rural Western Washington. Our company has worked with Trout Unlimited on several creek restoration projects,” explains Nelson. “These projects are vital to our local economy and provide much-needed work, and a living wage, to multiple local families employed through Olympic Resources.”
Luke Kelly, TU’s Western Washington Program Director, builds on that point. “I’m proud that our projects, and the state and federal funding supporting them, are providing partners like Mike and his employees with good jobs, but I’m also grateful for the deep bench of skilled contractors we get to work with on the coast. We have a lot of work planned for the coming years, and Mike and his team are one of many local companies that are making these projects possible.”
“It is rewarding to be a part of something so important for the restoration of our ecosystem,” Nelson adds. “These projects are helping restore a healthy fish population and are vital to the survival of eagles, hawks, bears and many other wildlife species. They also have a ripple effect on other communities surrounding ours. So many families on the Olympic Peninsula, as well as the many Native American tribes in our area, rely on the fishing industry through tourism and commercial fishing.”
Restoring Rainforest Rivers
Interested in learning more about Ziegler Creek, seeing footage of young Coho salmon holding in the log jam there and hearing more from Mike Nelson? Be sure to watch TU’s recent film celebrating this restoration work on Washington’s coast, and the partnerships and federal investments driving it forward.