Touring the Valley’s salmon habitats

I was privileged this week to participate in a unique tour around Big Lake and in a fly-out trip to see both the Alexander Lake system and Shell Lake. The four stops around Big Lake highlighted the importance of using different approaches in addressing the need for protection, renovation, or restoration of salmon habitat. The over-flight of the Alexander watershed and the tour of Shell Lake emphasized work being done to eliminate northern pike as salmon predators and ongoing work to identify the invasive plant species Elodea.

This full day of activities was presented by the Matanuska-Susitna Basin Salmon Habitat Partnership and underwritten by several of their members. The tour began at the Big Lake North Recreation Area as a meeting location.

Fish science: Big Lake coho salmon migration and habitat use

We traveled to Fish Creek Park on the outflow end of Big Lake where Jon Gerken of the US Fish and Wildlife Service gave a short presentation on much of the salmon research work the Service has been doing in the Big Lake drainage since 2009. The efforts have been centered on Coho salmon with the overarching goal of the various projects to make better fiscal decisions on culvert replacement, restoration, and conservation easements by better understanding Coho salmon life history requirements.

Big Lake shore restoration

From there, we moved to the Big Lake Sailing Club facility where Bruce Lee of the club and Tracy Smith of Fish and Game explained a multi-year restoration project. The sailing club owns 340 feet of lakeshore frontage which, since 1967 when the club was founded, had suffered serious erosion from various development projects the club undertook to improve facilities for members. Bank restoration and stabilization work sponsored by the club, the USF&WS, and Fish and Game began in 2012. By July of 2015, 330 feet of the shoreline had been stabilized to provide fish habitat.

Fish passage: Beaver Lake Road culvert replacement

Our next stop involved viewing the recently completed culvert replacement project on Beaver Lake Road. Jim Jenson of the Mat-Su Borough and Franklin Dekker of the USF&WS answered questions. The project involved removing the old and undersized culvert blocking juvenile fish passage in Meadow Creek and replacing it with essentially a bridge. Upgrading this passage opened up about 9 upstream miles and an estimated 128 acres of lake habitat to juvenile salmon use. Juvenile salmon can spend years in fresh water so they must be able to move both upstream and downstream to access favorable habitat. Ensuring that juvenile salmon have the best chance of accessing preferred habitats is important to protecting the health and future of salmon populations.

Habitat conservation

After returning to the Big Lake North Recreation Area, Phil Shephard and Kim Sollien of Great Land Trust gave an overview of what their agency does. GLT is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conserving lands and waters essential to the quality of life and the economic health of our communities. The group was founded in 1995 to work with willing landowners, agencies, communities, local governments, and other partners to conserve Southcentral Alaska’s special lands and waterways. Among other uses in the 11,000 acres of lands GLT has conserved over the past 20 years, 8000 acres of wetlands and 45 miles of salmon habitat have been protected from future development and loss.

Remote flight to areas west of the Susitna River: Alexander Creek

After lunch, ten of us boarded a Turbo Otter floatplane for the over-flight out to the Alexander Lake drainage. Samantha Oslund of Fish and Game gave us a presentation over the headphones of the work being done to rid the system of northern pike. For example, as of spring 2015, marking the fourth year of suppression efforts, notable results have been achieved. With each year of pike suppression, Chinook salmon fry have been found further up the creek system. Chinook salmon returns the last two years have been the highest in the last decade.

Heather Stewart of the Department of Natural Resources explained the work of identifying the spread of Elodea in the lakes and watersheds of the Mat-Su Basin.

Shell Lake

We next flew over to beautiful Shell Lake, where we landed and visited the field camp of Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association (CIAA) to learn about their efforts to restore the sockeye population decimated by northern pike, disease and parasites.

I would like to thank the Mat-Su Salmon Partnership and CIAA for an enjoyable day of learning about the efforts to improve both the habitat and fish populations of our Northern District.