City teams up with agencies to restore Bear Creek

In the 1990s, the City of Redmond determined that Bear Creek was inhibiting the productivity of the area’s wild Chinook salmon.

By Samantha Pak • May 29, 2015 12:45 pm
The City of Redmond recently completed restoring the lower Bear Creek. The project has been two decades in the making and included reshaping the creek to “meander” to slow down the stream’s flow to make it more fish friendly.
The City of Redmond recently completed restoring the lower Bear Creek. The project has been two decades in the making and included reshaping the creek to “meander” to slow down the stream’s flow to make it more fish friendly.

In the 1990s, the City of Redmond determined that Bear Creek was inhibiting the productivity of the area’s wild Chinook salmon.

To address this issue, city staff and officials came up with a plan to restore the lower part of the creek. The city teamed up with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), King Conservation District (KCD) and King County Flood Control District (KCFCD) to create a more fish-friendly environment and earlier this month, that work was completed.

A ribbon-cutting celebration was held May 14 to mark the occasion.

Through the restoration, about 3,000 feet of Bear Creek — located between State Route 520 and Bear Creek Parkway, behind Redmond Town Center — was relocated to an existing adjacent open space. In addition, the formerly, mostly straight stream was channelized to a meandering, reshaped and re-planted channel.

The creek now supports healthy and diverse fish runs as well as habitats, including a large wild Chinook salmon population and many other species, according to a press release issued by the City of Redmond.

Prior to this restoration, Mike Haley — a senior engineer with the city’s public works department and project manager — said the creek water flowed too quickly and was not conducive for the salmon to swim and live. Reshaping the creek to make it meander, he said, has slowed down the flow and will help the fish survive better.

According to the city release, the project also established stream buffers consistent with the city’s critical areas ordinance and allowed WSDOT “Stage 3” widening of the State Route-520 freeway adjacent to Bear Creek. The parallel path and side-routes allow people to walk over to the stream and to view and interact with the creek.

“This collaboration between the city and state emphasizes how proactively addressing our regional transportation challenges and improving our environment can move us forward together,” said Redmond Mayor John Marchione in the release. “Relocating and restoring this portion of Bear Creek into a productive salmon-bearing stream continues the city’s commitment to protect and improve our environment.”

Haley said WSDOT provided about $8 million in funding and the KCD and KCFCD provided grant money to help pay for the project. The city received $198,000 from the KCD and $236,000 from the KCFCD, while Redmond’s natural resources capital improvement program contributed about $3.09 million. The total cost of the project was about $11.53 million.

Kerry Pihlstrom, design engineer manager for WSDOT’s SR-520 program, said they became involved in the Bear Creek restoration project because it provided WSDOT with mitigation credits required as part of their permits for the floating bridge project.

She said a project such as the SR-520 bridge will and does impact the area’s aquatic resources such as fish habitats.

“These impacts are required to be mitigated,” Pihlstrom said.

She said working with Redmond was a great partnership for their agency as well as the city as they were able to accomplish both groups’ missions — mitigating some of the effects of the SR-520 bridge as well as improving the Bear Creek watershed.

Pihlstrom added that they were also lucky to identify a mitigation site that was within the corridor of where the bridge work is being done since this is such an urban area.

In addition to the other government agencies the city worked with on the project, Haley said they also worked with the Snoqualmie, Tulalip, Muckleshoot and Stillaguamish Indian tribes as they discovered an archeological site during the restoration work. Haley said they recovered stone tools that were created more than 10,000 years ago.

City of Redmond communications manager Lisa Rhodes said the city worked closely with these tribes to preserve much of the site while recovering the artifacts for academic studies.

Haley added that by consulting with the tribes, they were able to ensure that they dealt with the site and artifacts appropriately. The artifacts will be curated at the Muckleshoot tribal museum.