The Chronicle By John Henderer, 8/26/2000
A reconstructed oxbow channel of the Newaukum River may hold promise for fish recovery and flood control in the Chehalis River Basin.
Less than a mile east of Interstate 5, the Chehalis Indian Tribe supervised a habitat restoration project this summer that reopened about 1,500 feet of a plugged side channel.
Crews removed a dike, installed a culvert and reconstructed the side channel with excavators, gradually sloping it to provide a home for juvenile salmon. Throughout the meandering channel, workers placed large tree stumps, which provide habitat for juvenile coho salmon.
Its banks will be planted with willows, fir, alder, and cottonwood trees, as well as clover and fescue grasses.
''We're trying to have a fish-friendly and an eco-friendly flood-reduction project,'' said Craig Olds, fish and wildlife biologist with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, who toured the site Friday.
By allowing flood waters to move laterally, instead of merely charging downstream through restricted river channels, a flood's impact may be spread out and lessened, officials said.
Flood waters and fish could reach the channel before, but only when high flood waters overtopped blockages every 10 or 15 years. Without a back door open in the spring, the juvenile fish could not escape.
''These are real valuable to the fish only if they function yearly,'' said Mike McGinnis, Chehalis Tribe biologist.
The $33,000 project was ranked No. 1 by the Chehalis Basin Partnership, a local body overseeing habitat recovery, and was funded by the state's Salmon Recovery Funding Board.
If the pilot project succeeds, it could serve as a model to be repeated elsewhere throughout the Chehalis River Basin, serving the dual purpose of reducing flooding and restoring salmon runs.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is studying projects such as these as one alternative to so-called ''hard engineering'' solutions such as dikes, levies and dams as part of its flood-control study on the Chehalis River Basin.
''With enough of these flood areas opened up you'd probably see some reduction at the Mellen Street bridge (in Centralia),'' McGinnis said.
Besides showing promise for flood reduction, one estimate showed the side channel may produce 11,000 coho salmon smolts a year.
''If it did half that, it would be excellent,'' McGinnis said.
The adjacent fields, owned by the state Department of Natural Resources, had been leased to an adjacent dairy farm prior to the work.
Chehalis Tribe General Manager Richard Bellon said the tribe released McGinnis to work on the off-reservation project in partnership with other groups because the work benefits the tribe and its neighbors.
''That's where we failed in the past. We build all these hatcheries and they can't work for one reason or another,'' Olds said. ''We just need to let Mother Nature get back on her own two feet and sort things out.''
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John Henderer covers county government and environmental issues for The Chronicle. He can be reached by e-mail at jhenderer@chronline.com
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