http://pugetsoundblogs.com/waterways/2009/11/18/watching-streams-to-see-how-salmon-respond/ Environmental reporter Christopher Dunagan discusses the challenges of protecting Puget Sound and all things water-related. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:11:28 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://pugetsoundblogs.com/waterways/2009/11/18/watching-streams-to-see-how-salmon-respond/comment-page-1/#comment-17180 JOleyar Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:45:07 +0000 http://pugetsoundblogs.com/waterways/?p=3961#comment-17180 Emil, I welcome your concern and appreciation of Kitsap salmon. Funny you should mention Dogfish Creek, as a recent stream survey of that stream proved very insightful. As there were not many fish overall (to be expected in a low return year as this one), there were fish in-stream nonetheless (which did put a smile upon my face). To you specific concern regarding the "dam strucuture" on the Bond Rd fork of Dogfish Cr - it may be a slight slowdown for fish, but definitely not a passage blockage as you seem to illustrate. In fact, fish were observed distributed well upstream of this location. Some years low flows may slow fish passing at this location, as seems to be the case in every stream under those conditions. If you are looking to "fix" Dogfish Creek passage problems, I could steer you towards many other more impeding locations well downstream. We could start by removing all fencing which crosses the creek, as these are often washed into the channel during high water events and ultimately end up entangling fish and other creatures. Down fences catch much debris and begin to create dam barriers which fish cannot navigate through and tend to cause local flooding if not attended to. So perhaps we should focus first on cleaning up our precious streams of harmful debris and litter left behind by us. Emil, I welcome your concern and appreciation of Kitsap salmon. Funny you should mention Dogfish Creek, as a recent stream survey of that stream proved very insightful. As there were not many fish overall (to be expected in a low return year as this one), there were fish in-stream nonetheless (which did put a smile upon my face).
To you specific concern regarding the “dam strucuture” on the Bond Rd fork of Dogfish Cr – it may be a slight slowdown for fish, but definitely not a passage blockage as you seem to illustrate. In fact, fish were observed distributed well upstream of this location. Some years low flows may slow fish passing at this location, as seems to be the case in every stream under those conditions.
If you are looking to “fix” Dogfish Creek passage problems, I could steer you towards many other more impeding locations well downstream. We could start by removing all fencing which crosses the creek, as these are often washed into the channel during high water events and ultimately end up entangling fish and other creatures. Down fences catch much debris and begin to create dam barriers which fish cannot navigate through and tend to cause local flooding if not attended to. So perhaps we should focus first on cleaning up our precious streams of harmful debris and litter left behind by us.

]]> http://pugetsoundblogs.com/waterways/2009/11/18/watching-streams-to-see-how-salmon-respond/comment-page-1/#comment-17131 Emil Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:53:32 +0000 http://pugetsoundblogs.com/waterways/?p=3961#comment-17131 It is interesting to me to hear that Jon Oleyar (the Suquamish Tribe) is concerned about fish passage at that culvert. It must also take the smile from his face every time he drives down Bond Road in Poulsbo past the dam the the Suquamish Tribe put in and past the two other dams they have used on that property. I believe these three barriers pretty much stop fish from all the spawning grounds above them. I have personaly seen over 100 fish just hanging out below one of them. I am sure that they must be already working on the plan on removing them. "Lets remove the dams from Dog Fish Creek" It is interesting to me to hear that Jon Oleyar (the Suquamish Tribe) is concerned about fish passage at that culvert. It must also take the smile from his face every time he drives down Bond Road in Poulsbo past the dam the the Suquamish Tribe put in and past the two other dams they have used on that property. I believe these three barriers pretty much stop fish from all the spawning grounds above them. I have personaly seen over 100 fish just hanging out below one of them. I am sure that they must be already working on the plan on removing them. “Lets remove the dams from Dog Fish Creek”

]]>