Park near Edmonds gets makeover: Will the salmon return? (2024)

MEADOWDALE, Snohomish County — On a sunny winter day this week, a cargo train rumbled along a new steel and concrete bridge, suspended above Lund’s Gulch Creek.

The stream fanned out below as it found its way back through the mud and sand decades after a rocky railroad embankment had channeled it through a 6-foot-tall culvert, a popular access point for beachgoers seeking out the salty shores of Puget Sound.

Not far upstream, contractors over the past two years, led by historical maps, had worked to unearth and reconnect this small estuary where fresh and saltwater mix.

The nearly $20 million effort by Snohomish County, the Tulalip Tribes, BNSF and federal agencies to uproot 128 linear feet of two-track railroad and restore the area to its natural state is finally nearing completion. Dozens of parkgoers dotted the beach Tuesday.

Biologists hope endangered juvenile Chinook will soon find their way back here, in Meadowdale Beach Park, and use it as a place of refuge as they fatten up for their adulthood in the mean straits of the Salish Sea.

Many salmon species native to the Pacific Northwest are listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. They face climate-change driven drought, warming streams and physical barriers, like culverts and dams.

Some 70 miles of railroad on or near the Puget Sound shoreline previously blocked access to vital habitat for endangered salmon. But the restoration project, the first of its kind along the Sound’s rail-locked shores, may serve as a pilot project for future fish passage along the tracks.

Now begins a 10-year effort to monitor how Mother Nature reclaims the park near the suburban roads of Edmonds and Lynnwood.

Moving the railroad

After over a decade of planning and construction, humans and fish alike have easier access between Meadowdale beach and the park.

“For decades, we couldn’t even talk to Burlington Northern [Railway] about replacing culverts with bridges,” said Daryl Williams, a Tulalip Tribal citizen and longtime natural resources leader. “But the last few years they’ve been open to those discussions and we’re looking at doing more in the future.”

A 2019 study found 52 miles of Puget Sound’s shoreline are used by the railroad BNSF operates. And an additional 21 miles of railroad were within 200 feet of the shore. The Tulalip Tribes are now in talks with the railroad about a few other fish passage projects north and south of Meadowdale.

BNSF agreed to the Meadowdale project under the condition the county footed the bill. Project partners secured about $6.7 million in grants from federal, state and local agencies. The rest came from bonds, surface water management fees and real estate taxes assessed by the county.

The railway running along the shores of South Snohomish County is a main track with connections to Chicago, said Rob Marchand, Snohomish County senior park planner, so shutting it down for more than a few hours for the project would’ve been a lot to ask.

In a swift dance to construct the bridge, around 40 BNSF crew members drove 120-foot steel piles into the ground and stacked in concrete blocks and beams like Legos, said Mike Roberts, construction manager with Anchor QEA. They alternated closing the tracks, shutting down each for a 24-hour period, during which time the other track only needed to be closed for six hours.

The 6-foot concrete box culvert, often acting like a fire hose in the fall and winter months, was replaced with a 100-foot opening under the rail bridge.

Soon after the stream found its way beneath the bridge, volunteers tallied 40 chum salmon coming up to spawn, while hungry eagles and marine birds perched nearby, said Elisa Dawson, Snohomish County surface water management senior planner. In 2019, volunteers recorded no chum using the culvert to enter the creek, versus “about 10 to 20 in past years,” the report states.

Chinook, coho and chum salmon are expected to find their way back over the years for both rearing and spawning habitat.

Making way for fish

Crews removed some 3 million gallons of fill dirt and rerouted paths, allowing the mix of fresh and saltwater to spill into the renewed 1.3-acre estuary. They also added woody debris — logs and twigs — upstream to create cool pools for fish to rest.

Crews found a lot had changed since the estuary was last accessible. Trash, including a car, was buried beneath the park’s grassy surface.

There are about 17 miles of shoreline locked up by the rocky railroad berm in Snohomish County alone, said Frank Leonetti, Snohomish County fisheries biologist. Lund’s Gulch Creek was just one of the many coastal streams caught behind it.

When these coastal streams were choked off by railroads, industry or agricultural dikes, critical habitat for young salmon was lost, too, said Williams, the Tulalip natural resources liaison.

The Meadowdale project pales in comparison to a 350-acre lower estuary restoration project near the mouth of the Snohomish River, but these smaller projects play an important role, too.

A few years ago, the tribes partnered with the Skagit River System Cooperative to study how juvenile Chinook use coastal streams. They found over half of the coastal streams in the Whidbey Basin were refuges for the young salmon to grow. On average, the fish spent about 36 days in the small streams.

The young Chinook typically migrate from their upstream birthplace to lower estuary habitat at the river’s mouth. They may use that habitat to strengthen up before heading into the saltwater.

As the fragile young fish make their way into the Salish Sea, they may seek out coastal streams for protection from predators, storms and high tides, said Ryan Miller, Tulalip director of government affairs and treaty rights. The benefits for endangered Chinook are anticipated to extend to the endangered southern resident orcas, who rely on Chinook for about 80% of their diet.

“This is kind of a smaller project,” Miller said, “but we’ll see some good benefits from it and it can prove that we can work together — local government, state government, tribes and the railroad — to address an area that’s a real concern for habitat restoration.”

This story has been updated to reflect the correct publication year of a technical report on coastal stream recovery.