Up a creek

Fish to benefit from habitat restoration

July 23, 2006

By Amy Schenck/Frontiersman

MAT-SU - It wasn't a summer barbecue that inspired people to get together for salmon. Rather, it was a habitat-restoration project on Moose Creek.

Representatives from a swath of organizations and businesses gathered Friday to celebrate the success of the Moose Creek Fish Passage Restoration Project, which reopened seven miles of river to salmon and sparked interest in future collaborative efforts.

Although the Moose Creek project's beginnings date back only a few years, the story behind the project started in the 1920s, when the Alaska Railroad diverted Moose Creek to make way for tracks to the Sutton-area coal mines. The diverted water funneled over fish-impeding waterfalls, blocking up stream passage.

After 80 years, more than a half-million dollars, several permits and work involving heavy equipment, precise calculations and sheer muscle power, salmon swim up two sections of Moose Creek that zig zag along their former path.

Doug Wade, chairman of Chickaloon Village Traditional Council, sparked the project with his stories of when fish used to make their way into the upper reaches of Moose Creek. The stories led to the restoration idea which led to the project.

&#8220I threw a rock in the bank and (the idea) just took off like an avalanche,” said Wade, in front of the crowd gathered at Friday's celebration.

After an opening ceremony in which Wade was one of a handful speakers, people descended a steep slope leading to the section of Moose Creek most recently restored. The banks, caked with meticulously placed, habitat-providing logjams, had ample room for people to mill about.

At water's edge Jessica Dryden, project manager, and Brian Winnestaffer, project assistant, answered questions and pointed out interesting features, such as the side channel they built, which had fish swimming in the deep, slow-moving currents the day after opening.

Intermixed with the hum of friendly chit-chat and passing water, Dan Dryden, owner of Dryden Equipment, which did the heavy equipment work, recounted a couple of the project's tenser moments.

In May when the ground was still frozen, a 78,000-pound excavator slid down the hill toward the river &#8220like it was a big sled.” Although the operator had &#8220great trepidation,” he was also very skillful and managed to make it to the bottom, Dan Dryden said.

Dryden also mentioned the flooding that occurred the first time workers opened up a reconstructed creek channel, last year. After hours of scrambling, they re-diverted the flow to its old path, and within two days they discovered and fixed a design error.

&#8220It was really a major disaster,” he said.

In addition to talk of triumphs and tribulations, conversation at the Moose Creek project celebration centered on new collaborative efforts.

More than 30 groups, many of them represented Friday, have joined the recently formed Matanuska-Susitna Basin Salmon Conservation Partnership, which has been selected to participate as one of five pilot groups in the National Fish Habitat Initiative.

The National Fish Habitat Initiative, sponsored by state, federal and private donors, provides philosophy and funding to the Mat-Su partnership's work, said Corinne Smith from The Nature Conservancy, one of the organizations in the partnership.

To date, the Mat-Su partnership has replaced culverts blocking fish movement and contributed to the Moose Creek project. The partnership's first meeting in September will outline future plans.

The majority of the funding for the Moose Creek project, which cost $550,000, came from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was also a large contributor.

Two full-time salaries and equipment were the major costs, Jessica Dryden said. Lesser expenses, such as more than $5,000 for a rental freezer to store willows used for revegetation, reflected the many small expenses of restoration work.

Jessica Dryden was surprised to learn that the project's price tag was relatively inexpensive. Compared with other restoration projects in Alaska and the Northwest, the per foot cost was below average, Dryden said.

Dryden said she was also surprised by how much time a restoration project takes, even with heavy equipment.

Contact Amy Schenck at 352-2269 or amy.schenck@frontiersman.com.