Restoration
Our efforts to enhance salmon spawning in the Maxwelton Creek have improved habitat and fixed fish passage issues.

Salmon need:
1. cool, unpolluted water,
2. clean gravel that won't entomb their eggs in fine sediment,
3. sufficient water flow at the right times,
4. habitat that provide food and cover from preditors allowing juveniles to develop, and
5. passage to and from the ocean.

Measurements of temperature and dissolved oxygen have shown the damage from channeling the stream and removing trees and brush that border the creek (riparian buffer). Thick sediment in the stream is another result of removing this barrier.

Through a collaboration with willing landowners, Adopt-a-Stream, the State Department of Ecology and Island County Public Works, we have restored 1000 feet of riparian buffer. This partnership also replaced a critical culvert blocking the migration of fish up the middle reach of the Maxwelton.  Island County hopes to replace several road culverts to enhance road safety and eliminate critical fish passage issues.

We will continue to assess water quality, invertebrates (fish food) and salmon in the various stages of their life cycle in the Maxwelton and Quade Creek. Read more about annual smolt counts

In 2006-08 we completed additional fish passage and habitat restoration projects on private property along Quade Creek, a major tributary in the Maxwelton Watershed. We work with students from Edmonds Community College to do habitat assessments on Quade Creek pre- and post-restoration, as part of a project for National Fish & Wildlife Foundation. Read more

Students study the
culvert at the mouth of
Maxwelton Creek

Impact on the Nearshore
The Maxwelton watershed encompasses not only the drainage basin for the Maxwelton system but the nearshore marine environment in adjacent shoreline areas of Useless Bay, including adjoining coastal bluffs. This nearshore habitat is an important feeding and rearing stop for migrating salmon in several life stages, including listed Coho and Chum salmon.

A recent study by Washington Trout of the nearshore on the West side of Whidbey Island documents these findings.