A conservation group is restoring fish habitat: one humble creek at a time. The Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition recently trudged through one of Wrangell’s streams to improve fish passage. It’s one of many projects throughout Southeast to give salmon a helping hand.

An ordinary salmon’s life cycle is nothing less than a Herculean feat. They spend years fending for themselves and feeding in the open ocean. But it often all starts — and ends — in the tiniest of creeks.

It’s here on Pat Creek where hired help of the watershed coalition are felling second-growth spruce trees. They’re stick into the stream banks. 

“We really want it to look natural,” says SAWC Executive Director Rob Cadmus. He calls the work a sort of “reverse logging.”

“We’re not trying to create something that’s new, we’re trying to put it back the way it would be if it wasn’t logged in the first place,” he says.

But it has been logged. Heavily in the 1960s and ‘70s. Cutting this close to the stream isn’t legal anymore. But the damage is done. 

So, the group recently spent two weeks in June trying to un-do it. 

With funds from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Alaska Sustainable Salmon, the group cut down 31 trees. The woody debris from the logs creates shade from the sun, shelter from predators and slows down the water for juvenile salmon.

Watershed coalition biologist John Hudson explains the problem here.

“What happens to a channel is it becomes very uniform and kind of boring, it lacks all its complexity. For lack of a better term, it looks like a bowling alley, very flat and wide,” Hudson says.

He says that lack of obstacles creates a lot of white water.

“Wonderful if you’re a pink or chum salmon, because you’re just coming up here to spawn and then your offspring are just heading right to the ocean,” Hudson says. “But if you’re a king salmon or sockeye, and there are sockeye here, or Coho, the little fish need places to live, and they don’t like bowling alleys.”

Pat Creek is just one of streams that the coalition is working to restore habitat on. Others include Skagway’s Pullen Creek and Switzer Creek near Juneau.

The state’s done its part by removing culverts and breaching abandoned logging roads to help with fish passage. 

So, after all this work and more than $150,000 spent, how many more Coho, pink, chum and sockeye might be saved by this stream work? Hudson doesn’t want to guess. He says there are too many other factors impacting fish survival.

“The ocean where they spend most of their lives is another ballgame where their numbers fluctuate there. And what we did here has no effect on the ocean’s ability to help salmon survive and grow,” he says.

This project won’t count returning salmon. But Hudson says the science shows efforts like these increase the survival of juveniles. The coalition will keep an eye on this stream over the next two years.

“So we’re going to go with the physical monitoring, and just assume if you build it they will come,” Hudson says.

The coalition is planning more stream projects, such as improving habitats and water quality monitoring in Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley’s wetlands and Jordan Creek. 

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Pat’s Lake is a popular fishing area. It sits .2 miles away from the proposed site to dump almost 20,000 cubic yards of lead-contaminated soil. (Katarina Sostaric/KSTK)

The Wrangell Borough and local tribe are working together to find a new location for tons of lead-contaminated soil. Almost 20,000 cubic yards of treated soil is slated to be hauled from the old Byford Junkyard to a rock quarry near Pat’s Lake. 

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation began the cleanup efforts last spring. The state agency treated the soil and plans to place it in what’s called a monofill near Pat’s Creek. Now, the borough and Wrangell Cooperative Association are pushing back on this relocation plan.

“We are coming into this with no knowledge and we are trying to come up to speed on whether we are comfortable with them putting 2,000 dump-truck loads worth of lead-contaminated soil .2 miles from a fish stream,” local Tribal Administrator Esther Ashton 

Borough Assembly Member Patty Gilbert agreed. “Actually, the Pat’s Lake site is ideal,” Gilbert said. “It borders on, what, three sides with pure rock… except for the water source.”

The soil has been treated so it won’t seep into nearby material, but it’s still hazardous. The state planned to move it last summer but delayed due to public concern. Assembly member Steve Prysunka said he’s upset with the lack of public process.

“Never did this body get approached by anybody in the state to discuss what was going on,” Prysunka said. “So, that bothers me as a community member and as an assembly member. This is not just a tribe issue; this is also an assembly issue.”  

The borough and tribe have sent letters to the state conservation agency asking for other options. The state’s replies are little more than a take it or leave it. In a letter, the agency said there are no other viable sites on city or state land on the island. When the borough asked for a deadline to find other sites, the agency said there’s no time left to consider other spots on the island. And, if the city wants to ship the soil south, it needs to come up with the $8 million cost by next April.

The borough and tribe don’t want to make a formal appeal at this time, but they will push back. 

“I would like to delve more into those deadlines because we don’t know why those were imposed specifically,” Ashton said. “And it basically gives no time to come up with alternatives.”

An uncertain road lays ahead for the local governments. The state’s plan is exactly that, a plan to take care of the soil. To dismiss the state’s help would mean a lot of legwork for the tribe and borough, like finding alternative locations and funds on their own. 

“One of my concerns is that this pile will end up staying where it is,” Prysunka said.

And that is a race against the clock, because the state says the lining containing the soil has a shelf life of two years. After that, it starts to degrade, making it hazardous or more costly to move.

“I’m all about finding alternatives, but at some point we’re going to have a go, no-go date,”Prysunka said.

The tribe and borough are also going above and beyond the state agency. Ashton says the tribe spoke with U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, who will then talk with Gov. Bill Walker.

The borough and tribal officials say they will continue to fight the state’s decisions, while keeping the community informed and involved in the process.

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