Estuary Restoration

Read more about the article Suquamish Tribe’s Doe Kag Wats estuary: Keeping good wood, removing bad wood

Suquamish Tribe’s Doe Kag Wats estuary: Keeping good wood, removing bad wood

The Suquamish Tribe’s Doe Kag Wats estuary is the site of a large woody debris removal experiment this summer.

”Our hypothesis is that by removing the excess amount of the milled and treated logs that have washed into the estuary, the native marsh vegetation will be restored, as well as insect species, many of which are important to both healthy and recovering salmon populations,” said Tom Ostrom, the tribe’s salmon recovery coordinator and project manager.

The project is two-fold: First, the tribe and the state Department of Natural Resources removed the remaining creosote pilings from the estuary. These toxic pilings have been pushed into the estuary by storms and tides for decades. (more…)

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Skokomish Tribe, USGS map seafloor topography and habitats of Skokomish estuary

If the waters of Hood Canal were drained from the Skokomish delta today, the exposed seafloor would show a complex network of channels within the delta that leads to steep ridges on the bottom of Hood Canal.

The Skokomish Tribe is working with U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to map the topography, morphology and habitats of the delta and the tribe’s 1,000-acre estuary in southern Hood Canal.

The goal is three-fold: to determine the amount and condition of existing nearshore habitats; to better understand how the river’s sediment transports to the delta; and how sediment movement effects ecosystems, including eelgrass, tidal flats and food resources for salmon. (more…)

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