
Community volunteers and streamside residents helped Sound Salmon Solutions and the Edmonds Stream Team release several thousand coho salmon fry into upper Perrinville Creek on Saturday.
Joe Scordino, project leader for the Edmonds Stream Team, reported that the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has authorized the release of coho salmon “babies” from the Edmonds’ Willow Creek Salmon Hatchery into Shell, Perrinville, Northstream, Willow, Shellabarger and Boeing Creeks to enhance and reestablish salmon runs in Puget Sound small creeks. These coho will spend their first year of life in the creeks before migrating to sea, where they will grow for an additional two years before returning to the creeks as spawning adult salmon.
Kaelie Spencer, Willow Creek Hatchery manager, said that the public is welcome to observe the release of several thousand additional coho salmon fry into upper Shell Creek in Yost Park at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, May 25. Those interested in volunteering to help with the release operation may sign up here, although registration is limited.
Another great example that indicates Joe and all his helpers really understand the environment. Joe should be thanked by the Administration for his continued involvement in educating our youth as to the need to restore our environment and not destroy it.
The current CARA code will destroy that pristine critical area where its’ soil acts as a recharge for creating drinkable water.
Please contact your Council@edmondswa.gov to vote against the staff recommendation of the 2024 CARA Code and pass the 2023 CARA code that prohibits digging in our Deer Creek Watershed.
Staff has demonstrated total disregard of the environment with zoning and density (and lack of code) taking precedence over maintaining environmental areas that future generations will need – as growth takes over our surrounding City! All stormwater flows to its lowest point – Edmonds! So please take note folks during this comp plan update!
Our sewer is at capacity and MLT is using more capacity. Please read Joe’s Op Ed on “Sewer to the Sea”.
The comp plan update seems to have no considerations for these infrastructure issues as staff continues to push density. Don’t be fooled by staff’s urgency to “dump everything” into the update. I’ll bet a beer – Council will get a completely rewritten plan and it’s coming during budget season too! Perfect timing.
Please protect our environment. Speak up!
We are trying Diane. It is sort of amazing to me that the CC members that are not concerned it seems are the ones I thought would care about our environment. I just can’t get my head around this fact. I get it that we need to build. I get it. But I don’t know why we can’t do it in a responsible way. Drinking water and protecting from erosion seems like a no brainer for me. It’s not a selfish thing to want to protect. It is for our future generations. Things have really gone off the rails in our state and even our Governor who is supposedly such an environmental advocate seems to just turn a blind eye. Refusing to move some of our growth to more rural areas? They want some growth is what I read. I just don’t get it! Our county needs to get it! Snohomish County I believe is one of our last chances to not put concrete everywhere. Seattle in King is a big city. I think it would be better to spread this all out up here and try to maintain as much forest and creeks in the towns here as we possibly can. I am sort of bummed out to see all I fought for all of my adult life being mocked. Saying we are selfish??
When you elect people to City Councils and hire City Staff managers that are more concerned about promoting a particular political narrative and the theory of the day rather than simply providing the citizens a well run and competent city government, current Edmonds is what you end up with. Planning a city for people who supposedly aspire to move here has become way more important than taking care of what we have, especially in terms of the environment that our rampant development has almost destroyed. It’s time to take a lesson from the indigenous people we all stole our land from and try to live in harmony with nature, instead of trying to harness it to our human Will all the time. Again, I urge everyone to walk or drive by that latest project at the bottom of Bell Street Hill. More and more too large structures on too small and inappropriate building lots is the future of our beautiful little piece of the earth and it is both sad and disgusting.
The release several thousand coho salmon fry into upper Perrinville Creek Is commendable environmental stewardship. The city of Edmonds wants to be a leader in the Arts community which is certainly worthwhile. Wouldn’t it also be a worthy goal for the Nelson-Rosen administration to show leadership by respect and vision to local environmental values? How about the administration adopting the slogan, “Edmonds- where we care about our local ecosystem”.
Thank you, Diane, Clinton and Brian. I wish I could write as eloquently as you. Every week for years I have watched our CC meetings. In the beginning I thought it was really nice when they read the acknowledgment for our local tribes our indigenous people. The last year I have listened, and I always wonder what our tribal chiefs and members think when they hear it. I can’t help but think they hear now hypocrisy in those words. That is what I hear now. I like your slogan idea Brian. All of this is very sad. I will drive down and look Clinton. I just hope so much that Mayor Rosen will do as you say. I know Mayor Rosen is a nice man and I would think he would see the value in our environmental concerns. He is a Dem I am pretty sure, and I know some of the progressive L ideas in other ways are good but there is a happy medium somewhere. If there isn’t well this entire country is doomed to fail. I don’t care what anyone says it’s obvious. The CC members children and their grandchildren should be their concern too.
Mr. Scordino,
– During their first year in the creeks, what are the challenges they face? Predators, poor water quality, high water temperature in the summer, lack of food, humans, etc?
– After one year how do they which way to go to the sea? Path of least resistance (down stream)? What is their size at one year?
– Do you have a projection for how many will be successful in returning to the creek of origin? Do they sometimes end up returning to another creek?
Thank you for your efforts.
The sad thing is that these baby salmon that little Theo and Elliot just got to help release into the wild have very little chance to return to the upper reaches of their adopted creek of origin because we (City of Edmonds) have blocked off that area in order to handle torrents of storm water streaming out of Lynnwood into the Perrinville Creek watershed. It would be wonderful if a percentage of the fish could come back to spawn and renew their NATURAL life cycle, but the chances of them getting to do that are low until we change our approach to our natural gifts and treat those gifts properly. Our Hatchery and others are a Court of Last Resort and just a reprieve for salmon surviving in the Salish Sea and in the creeks at all.
I thought that salmon can’t get out to the sea or back up PV creek because of a barrier down on the mouth of that creek.
Did that artificial barrier get removed ?
I hope so !
I also heard that a propery owner has a private “creek pool ” on their property that is hindering salmon passage . Is that true ?
What is the ecolgical condition of of the PV creek as a whole and, especially, at the mouth of the creek where it meets the sea ?
Thank you !
In response to questions, these salmon fry survived the egg-to-fry life stages which is when most early mortality occurs in the wild. They will be faced with predators, including birds and resident cutthroat trout, during their life in the creek until about March-May of next year when they will migrate downstream as 4-6″ smolt into Puget Sound. The upper Perrinville habitat does not appear to be food-limited for these coho fry, but they could be affected by excessively high flows. Their downstream movement is essentially with the creek flow and thus should not be affected by the obstacles below Talbot Street that prevent upstream migrating adult salmon.
My hope remains that the City fix the Talbot/Railroad adult salmon passage problems within three years so that these coho fry can return to spawn in this creek. Further, Edmonds needs to work with Lynnwood to design and implement excess stormwater control measures such as a diversion structure where the ‘piped’ stormwater system enters the creek just below the Post Office.
Joe and his crew of regulars (I’m a newby) moved 4000 fish from the hatchery pond to the creek in about 20 buckets and as far as we can tell not one fish died in the process. They were seine netted, then dip netted into the buckets, hauled clear across town in a truck bed with virtually no mortality. That is beyond an amazing accomplishment!
Thats awesome. Congratulations to Joe and his team.