From forests to flagellates: The Water and Land Resources Division is a resilient watershed utility

On any given day, the people in the Water and Land Resources Division are working on everything from the broadest of environmental issues of our landscape, to the microscopic work that takes place in our lab to provide one of the most crucial assets in our field – data. From stewarding the region’s expansive forests, to measuring organisms that are invisible to the naked eye in our waterbodies, there is no job too big or too small for us to take on to help ensure clean water and healthy habitat in King County. 

From flagellates under a microscope to hundred-acre forests, WLRD supports the entire watershed.

“The Water and Land Resources Division carries out a very diverse mission. Using nearly a dozen different funding sources, we provide the science and the technical expertise to support residents and decision makers in their stewardship of our natural resources. Like our sister divisions that serve as wastewater and solid waste utilities, we are, in essence, a watershed utility.”

Josh Baldi, WLRD director

A significant proportion of our workforce spend their days in the field monitoring the effectiveness of our projects and programs; preventing or eradicating threats to our environment; building or repairing critical infrastructure that is unseen by the casual observer; meeting with residents to provide technical assistance for their land or business; and protecting or restoring the habitat that the region’s native species rely on.

The Noxious Weed Control Program crews created safety guidelines to work together in the field.

When the COVID-19 emergency hit, WLRD staff quickly adopted new safety practices for field and lab work and deployed new online tools for public engagement and partner meetings to continue delivering essential services to our customers safely and without interruption.   

Under the microscope, behind the data 

The King County Environmental Laboratory was already well into a major construction project to replace critical infrastructure – fume hoods and heating systems – when the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic fully hit. Employees at the lab acted quickly to continue essential sample analysis required for public health, water quality permit compliance, public swimming beach monitoring, and support for the Solid Waste and Wastewater Treatment divisions.

A construction project to replace a major portion of the lab’s environment was in progress during the pandemic.

Workflows drastically changed to maximize teleworking; moving from paperwork to digital platforms and ensuring safe distancing for in-person work at the laboratory. Communication with our customers and the public never slowed, and County programs continued providing essential services. (Check out, The King County Environmental Lab: Resilience and Adaptation Under Pressure.)

Teams of WLRD scientists adapted monitoring practices to ensure the safety of field staff by adjusting for social distancing, wearing masks, and conducting training and planning sessions outdoors or by teleconference. 

Field teams continued to do monitoring using masks and social distancing practices. Some employees’ environments made it easier to social distance.

WLRD’s scientists continued their collaborative work with Public Health – Seattle & King County to monitor the health and public safety of swimming beaches; generated new research about threatened juvenile Chinook salmon in the Snoqualmie River; continued their groundbreaking work to preserve imperiled Lake Sammamish kokanee salmon by partnering with a private hatchery on Orcas Island; and promoted and coordinated best practices for managing beavers.

Providing water quality sampling and analysis to beach managers allows them to protect people and pets from getting sick.

Responding to multiple disasters 

In early 2020, before COVID was a household word, King County responded to the most severe flooding in decades which led to a Presidential Major Disaster Declaration, the 13th declaration of this kind since 1990.

During flooding on the Cedar River in February, the Riverbend Lower Levee was washed away, which achieved a major aspect of the planned project to widen the floodplain.

Due to the severity of the flooding countywide in January and February, damage inspection of all 511 levees and revetments – normally done biannually – was accelerated and completed by October to quickly schedule any needed repairs. Levees and revetments are essential facilities that help to reduce flood and erosion risks to life and safety, homes, roads and farms and other businesses.

In 2020, six repair projects and seven flood-risk reduction projects were completed across six river basins. The Flood Warning Center, now in its 60^th year, restructured operations to ensure continuity in delivering critical flood information to agencies and residents while adhering to social distancing guidelines brought about by COVID-19. A new Countywide Capital Team was created to expand capacity for responding to urgent river facility repairs. WLRD is the primary contracted service provider to the King County Flood Control District for flood warning, facility inspection and repair, and flood hazard management capital projects. 

New programs and pandemic support 

King County launched the nation’s first County-led Forest Carbon Program, to sell carbon sequestration credits. The revenue supports the King County Land Conservation Initiative and provides incentives for preserving and enhancing privately owned and managed forests. The program received an award from the National Association of Counties for innovation in sustainability.

The Forest Carbon Program offers local companies the option to offset their carbon emissions which helps to protect the forests in our community.

Forest restoration projects that improve forest health and enhance opportunities to sequester carbon have increased and directly contributed to the success of planting 1 Million Trees with partners across King County.  

WLRD’s leadership through the King County Farmland Preservation Program over the past 40 years has kept nearly 16,000 acres of the best farmland available for production. Focused on equitable outcomes, the program also ensures land access is available to underserved communities and new farmers. 

King County’s farming industry was hit hard by COVID-19. Our agriculture team responded by helping launch the Local Food Finder map, connecting consumers directly with farmers when farmers markets and restaurants closed or reduced service early in the pandemic. The ag team also supported the distribution of $1.4 million in federal CARES Act funding to support farmers, farmers markets, food banks and senior centers.

Clean water, healthy habitat 

Water and Land staff are part of the regional Hazardous Waste Management Program to reduce exposure to hazardous materials and prevent toxic compounds from entering the environment. All prevention services were shifted to online and phone-only services. Vouchers were offered for hazardous materials management and personal protective equipment was distributed. A new website increased access to information about natural yard care, safe disposal of hazardous materials, and water quality protection by offering this information in 13 languages. The “Guilt Free KC” and “Ojo con el Cloro” (“Careful with Bleach”) campaigns promoted safe hazardous waste disposal and safer cleaning practices to protect human health and the environment – especially relevant as people turned to harsh chemicals like bleach to rid their homes of germs during the pandemic.

Examples of multilingual outreach materials available being used by the Hazardous Waste Management Program to increase access and education and reduce toxic substances from entering the environment.

Landward, the Noxious Weed Control Program developed new field safety protocols to keep employees safe as they continued to control noxious weeds to protect people and the environment. Priority was given to high-risk infestation control that put people and critical resources in danger, and to property owners highly impacted by noxious weeds. Despite challenges, knotweed control was maintained on the Cedar, upper Snoqualmie, Skykomish, middle and lower Green rivers, and Soos Creek. In all, specialists surveyed more than 8,000 infestations of regulated noxious weeds, 86 percent of which were controlled.

The Noxious Weed Program’s Healthy Lands Project (HeLP) carried out weed control on more than 20 new public and private open space parcels, improving public benefits and supporting green jobs on nearly 70 acres. HeLP supported the new North Highline open space property purchased by King County Parks through a new match-waiver program that increases open space for underserved communities.

By providing noxious weed control on land acquired by King County for open space ensures the land is healthy and available for everyone.

Adjusting to the world of on-line presentations, staff competed for state-managed grants for Floodplains by Design and Puget Sound Acquisition and Restoration dollars and received number-one rankings in both highly competitive programs for construction of the Fall City Floodplain Restoration Project to restore 145 acres of floodplain process and reduce 100-year flood elevations on over 300 acres of Snoqualmie River habitat. The grants would put the division in position to construct the roughly $15 million project in 2022.

Managing stormwater is another key component to protecting water quality. In 2020, significant steps were taken toward developing a Green Stormwater Infrastructure incentive program within unincorporated King County. Additionally, the Our Green Duwamish coalition used innovative tools to engage partners watershed planning efforts for increased clean water.

Stormwater management includes moving runoff through a system of pipes and culverts, many of which are known barriers to fish passage that hamper efforts to restore weak fish populations. Removing these barriers is one of the most effective ways to quickly restore salmon habitat access. King County Fish Passage Restoration Program employees spent 2020 in the field creating an inventory of these barriers around the county.

As of November, the field crew had completed 1,438 site visits in 2020, reaching a total of 2,851 site visits since spring 2019,and identifying almost 800 fish passage barriers at County assets. The next step is to determine how removing these barriers will be prioritized to help the most fish get to the best habitat as soon as possible.

The above video shows chum spawning inside the new Green River Road box culvert into Mary Olson Creek near Auburn. The use of the culvert by fish so soon after construction was completed, shows the success of the design and construction of the project by the King County Roads Division.

Supporting and protecting King County’s watersheds ranges from creating expansive, multi-generation visions for our work, to monitoring the smallest organisms and connecting their health to ours. It is work done in the field, in the lab, and now via online video calls. All of it is done with respect to the safety of our employees and the commitment to our work.

Help wanted: Must love benthic macroinvertebrates. [The Water and Land Resources Division at work.]

By Gavin Tiemeyer

Hard at work: King County’s seasonal Stream Team collect bug samples in Coal Creek Natural Area in Bellevue, Washington.

Editor’s note: this story was written prior to the pandemic and social distancing requirements were in place. Team members are currently using masks and social distancing protocols.

Hands down, one of the coolest job at King County is working with the stream bug monitoring program, and arguably one of the most underappreciated.

Stream bugs don’t generate the same hype as salmon or Orcas, but they’re deserving of the same attention. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that most of us associate verbs like squashing, swatting, and killing with the word bugs. Regardless of how we humans feel about them, bugs rule the world, and we’d be wiser to learn to share it with them.

King County’s stream bug monitoring team thinks differently about bugs. They recognize the important role bugs play as indicators of the health of Washington’s watersheds.

On this field day, members of King County’s Stream Team collected samples from a handful of streams in Bellevue, Washington. Their first stop was the Coal Creek Natural Area, an urban greenspace that is just big enough that you forget you’re in a major metropolitan city.

The team was looking for benthic macroinvertebrates – think bottom dwelling bugs that live in the gravel, wood, and other debris in a stream. The team is particularly interested in documenting bugs that live in the riffles of the stream.

“The bugs we want to find are more diverse and plentiful in riffles,” explains Emily Rahlmann, a seasonal Stream Team member. A riffle is important habitat where fast moving water supplies plenty of oxygen that stream bugs to need to survive.

But why care about the little creepy crawlers in a stream?

“Bugs are super good indicators of what is going on in a stream, as well as the whole health of the watershed,” Tristan Hites, another seasonal Stream Team member explains. He’s right. The presence or lack of stream bugs says a lot about the health of a stream, and the larger ecosystem. According to the stream bug monitoring program, “bugs play a crucial role in the stream nutrient cycle. If bug populations are suffering it will affect the whole ecosystem.” That means that without bugs, growing fish have nothing to eat, and without fish, ocean predators have nothing to eat, and so on and so forth in a trophic cascade that is bad for everyone, including us.

Meet a stonefly nymph. This type can spend 2 years in the stream before molting into an adult and venturing to the land to mate and die.

The teams work in twos and will sample an area of the stream containing four riffles. One team member will collect bug samples from a riffle using a tool called a Surber sampler while the other team member will take measurements of the stream and outlying area in order to learn more about overall health of the surrounding ecosystem. When they move to a new stream, they alternate responsibilities.

A Surber sampler is like an underwater butterfly net that collects insects into a plastic receptacle at the end of a net.

Emily starts with the Surber sampler, a net fixed to a square brass frame that when seated firmly against the streambed allows water to flow into a plastic receptacle at the net’s end. She explains the Surber sampler is handmade by a local company and it is arguably the most valuable tool they have. One worth taking care of. Oh yeah – one crucial step to this process is digging up the riffle with a “weed tool” in order to shake loose the tiny benthic insects hiding in the streambed. Under a one-minute time interval, Emily digs the weed tool vigorously into the riffle and a brown plume of pebbles and fine sediment flow through the Surber into the plastic receptacle.

Emily works to position the Surber sampler into the streambed. Pictured also is the “weed tool” used to dig loose benthic macroinvertebrates hiding under the rocks.

Downstream, Tristan, who holds a degree in wildlife biology degree, takes measurements of the streambed, using a variety of nifty, low-tech instruments. They work with a calm and collected ease, the movements of professionals who have perfected their craft through repetition. Tristan makes quick use of the stadia rod and measuring tape to document instream features such as riffle depth and stream width.

It takes a team of two working together to take bug samples and record stream measurements.

Dr. Kate Macneale, an Environmental Scientist and the lead of King County’s Stream Bug Monitoring Program, explained how the seasonal work is done with a small team. Out of a large pool of applicants for the seasonal work, team members are chosen for their unique qualifications and ability to perform the important job.

Both Emily and Tristan speak fondly of their team leads. “They’re both very enthusiastic about their bugs – especially Kate,” reflects Emily. “Kate gets very excited when we find big stoneflies.” A stonefly is to a stream what a canary is to a coal mine. Stoneflies are great indicators of stream health because they’re so sensitive to the fine silt and pollution that run off roads and into streams when it rains.

Emily dumps the contents from the riffles she’s sampled into a white rubber tub and begins the process of separating pebbles from the more important things that will be sent to the lab for analysis. Mayfly, stonefly, and caddisfly nymphs are good signs. Samples dominated by midges and worms, however, indicate water and habitat conditions are not so good. Tristan and Emily also keep an eye out for New Zealand mud snails in order to document the spread of the invasive species.

It’s the stream life: Emily gets comfortable to separate larger pebbles from the important stuff in her sample.

So far, no signs of big stoneflies, just a couple of caddisflies. But Emily points to something else blending in among the other pebbles. A vertebrate. A fish. “A sculpin!” Emily pronounces. The tiny fish is no bigger than your thumb. Here, in the middle of a densely populated city lives this unique animal, just like its predecessors have done for eons. Emily gently places it back into the stream, protocol if you catch a live fish.

Eye Spy: Can you find the animal blending in among the pebbles in this photo? Clue: It’s a fish.

“Oh yeah, we gotta show you the pebble count,” Tristan says with a smile.

The pebble count is the most charming task of the stream bug monitoring team. Not because it’s fun but because of the way Tristan and Emily deal with the monotony of the task. The Wolman pebble count (to be exact) is a method used to measure the diversity of the stream’s substrate. A team member must pick 100 pebbles at random and measure each pebble’s diameter by pushing it through a size slot in a metal frame called a gravelometer. If the pebble fits you have a measurement. Pebble measurements are documented by the other team member using the slot’s corresponding letter.

“But sometimes the noise of the stream can get in the way,” Tristan explains. “The letter B and D sound similar so it’s easier to come up with names.”

Tristan picks up a rock. “Kathryn.” He picks up another rock, and another. “Judith, Frankie, Judith, Judith, Frankie, Gordon, Horris, Ethel, Kathryn, Astrid, Judith, Kathryn, Lucile, Michael…” And so on and so forth until 100 pebbles are counted.

“Sometimes we use the names of snacks, but get too hungry,” Emily adds.

Remember, even the smallest neighborhood stream contains a diversity of life. Tread lightly.

The last stream the team sampled is squeezed between two residential properties close to Lake Sammamish. It doesn’t scream nature as much as the Coal Creek Natural Area. There aren’t many trees to provide habitat for insects and fish and the banks have been reinforced. Still, there is something special about it. Despite the developing landscape around the stream, a tiny, hidden world of life persists. If you look down at the moving water and squint your eyes you can almost see it. Tristan and Emily get to work: Seat the Surber sampler in the riffle, collect the sample, and take measurements of the stream. One riffle, two riffle, three riffle four. If they’re not here now, maybe the mayfly, stonefly, and caddisfly – the tiny indicators of the stream ecosystem—will return. Our future looks better if they do.

In May 2020, the Stream Bug Monitoring Program published a project report that studied how the health of several historically degraded King County streams could be improved by seeding them with a diverse community stream bugs from healthy streams. Read Bug Seeding: A Possible Jump-start to Stream Recovery.

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Gavin Tiemeyer is a graduate of The Evergreen State College where he studied environmental communication. He was a communications intern with the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks where he spent time in the field with employees of the Water and Land Resources Division to detail a fraction of the work they do along rivers and streams to ensure clean water and healthy habitat in King County.

King County scientists see unprecedented harmful algal bloom in Puget Sound

On June 16, field scientists from the King County Environmental Laboratory were collecting routine water quality samples aboard the research vessel, SoundGuardian, in the Central Basin of Puget Sound. As they were sampling, they noticed some patchy, brown coloration at the water’s surface at several sites visited that day.

Blooms of Heterosigma akashiwo can develop very quickly and form conspicuous brown patches at the water’s surface where they congregate during the day. This flagellate can bloom in high numbers multiple times per season. (Photo: Gabriela Hannach)

The samples were analyzed and determined to be a dense bloom of a tiny, harmful flagellate known as Heterosigma akashiwo. A regular component of Puget Sound’s phytoplankton community, Heterosigma has the dubious honor of belonging to a group known as Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) species. Heterosigma has been repeatedly associated with fish mortality.

The highest concentration of Heterosigma measured in the last six years reached 2 million cells per liter in the protected waters of Quartermaster Harbor. Last week’s bloom reached numbers as high as 4 million cells per liter. Cell densities of this magnitude are rarely observed in Puget Sound’s main basin.  It is the largest Heterosigma bloom King County scientists have observed in the history of the phytoplankton monitoring program in Puget Sound’s Central Basin.

The FlowCAM instrument is an automated imaging microscope used at the King County Environmental Lab to study phytoplankton cells in water samples. (Photo: Lyndsey Swanson)

A common and globally distributed coastal species, Heterosigma often blooms in shallow recesses of Puget Sound’s shoreline, but much less frequently in the mixed waters of its three deeper basins.

Puget Sound is home to many different types of HABs that exhibit a wide range of troublesome effects for people and wildlife. Heterosigma has long been associated with fish kills and while the exact mechanism is not yet clear, there is some evidence that it produces hydrogen peroxide (a reactive oxygen species) which can cause gill damage and lead to anoxia and respiratory failure.

Scientists believe the explosion of Heterosigma cells was enabled by a period of rainy weather that established a stable surface layer of nutrient-rich, low-salinity water where these cells could thrive and reproduce readily. It is extremely unlikely the bloom was related to the West Point Treatment Plant as the bloom is occurring all over central Puget Sound; the plant’s performance has been normal with no overflows; and the effluent quality has been excellent.

A clear relationship between Heterosigma blooms and rising spring temperatures has been documented in field studies, suggesting that as the average global temperature rises, we could see an increase in the frequency of blooms of this toxic flagellate in Puget Sound waters.

Above are microscopic photos of individual particles detected in water samples arranged in a collage by the FlowCam instrument. The golden, oval-shaped particles in this collage are Heterosigma akashiwo collected from the recent bloom. (Photo: Gabriela Hannach)

Since 2008, the King County Environmental Laboratory has monitored the phytoplankton community of the Central Basin of Puget Sound, using microscopy to document the enormous variety of phytoplankton that inhabit these waters.

King County shares data with local agencies to share and inform aqua-culturists and other relevant agencies as an advanced warning, thereby helping to protect local industry from the potentially deleterious effects of this harmful species.

Heterosigma akashiwo is a small, photosynthetic flagellate common to Puget Sound waters. It is best known for its cartwheeling swimming pattern, cornflake-like appearance, and association with fish kills. (Video: Lyndsey Swanson)

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Sources

Cochlan,W.P., Trainer, V.L. Trick, C.G., Wells, M.L., Eberhart, B.-T. L., Bill, B.D. 2013.Heterosigma akashiwo in the Salish Sea: defining growth and toxicity leading to fish kills. Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Harmful Algae.

Glibert, P.M., Anderson, D.M., Gentien, P., Grane´li, E., Sellner, K.G., 2005. The global, complex phenomena of harmful algal blooms. Oceanography 18 (2), 136–147.

Taylor, F. J. R., Haigh, R. 1993. The Ecology of Fish-Killing Blooms of the Chloromonad Flagellate Heterosigma akashiwo in the Strait of Georgia and Adjacent Waters. In: Smayda, T. J. and Shimizu, Y. (eds.). Toxic Phytoplankton Blooms in the Sea. Elsevier, Amsterdam. 705-771

Horner, R. A. 2002. A Taxonomic Guide To Some Common Phytoplankton. Biopress Limited, Dorset Press, Dorchester, UK. 200.

Steidinger, K.A. & Meave del Castillo, M.E. [Eds.] 2018. Guide to the Identification of Harmful Microalgae in the Gulf of Mexico.(Vols. I-II). St. Petersburg, FL; DiggyPOD, Inc.

Swanson, L.M, & Hannach G.; “Harmful Algal Species in the Central Basin of Puget Sound: Seasonal Bloom Patterns Analyzed Via FlowCAM Technology.” Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference 2020 (Digital poster presentation). King County Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, WA.

Rensel, J.E.J., 2007. Fish kills from the harmful alga Heterosigma akashiwo in Puget Sound:  Recent blooms and review.

From trash to treasure: a clean and lean idea helps the Lake Geneva community

By Marta Olson

For years, something unpleasant was lurking in the waters of Lake Geneva – disturbing visitors and residents alike. No, not a mythical sea monster, but a 15-foot boat that sank in the lake and had been abandoned years ago. Kayakers and boaters complained about hitting it in the summer months when the water is lower; that it detracted from the natural beauty of the lake; and it was just plain bad for the lake’s ecological health.

Lake Geneva is one of 760 small and large lakes and reservoirs in King County.

Lake Geneva is located in the suburbs between Auburn and Federal Way, and the shoreline includes a public park, boat launch, woods and private homes. Chris Knutson with King County’s Water and Land Resources Division administers the Lake Geneva Management District, which formed in 2016 to address issues like increased algae blooms, decreased water quality, debris and noxious weeds. In this role, he was tasked with solving the sunken boat problem.

Chris Knutson with King County’s Lake Stewardship Program.

Chris started with the obvious solution – just pull the boat out of the lake. After meeting with staff from King County Roads and surveying the location, Chris thought he might have a plan. But it required a truck with a winch, flaggers on both sides of the street, a flatbed for transporting the boat and possibly an excavator to help pull the boat up the steep slope from the lake to the road and onto the truck. While the plan was feasible, all the heavy equipment and crew time needed to carry it out added up to about $6,000.

Chris felt stuck; the Lake Geneva Advisory Board wanted the boat gone but the cost would be more than 40% of District’s annual budget. So he started looking into other options. He had never considered waterside removal by boat since no one in his department had that equipment or expertise. He reached out to Deputy Chris Bedker from the King County Sheriff’s Office Marine Rescue Dive Unit to ask about the logistics and legal process of derelict boat retrieval and disposal.

In that conversation, a rather elegant solution was proposed: use the boat removal as a training exercise for Marine Unit deputies. On Nov. 10, the Marine Rescue Dive Unit arrived at Lake Geneva, removed the boat, and disposed of it at a landfill – all for a total cost of $28. The cost savings were lauded by the Lake Geneva residents who were able to see their District contributions spent on other important projects like improving water quality and noxious weed control.

Deputy Chris Bedker towing the abandoned boat.

There are so many fabulous departments and divisions within King County with expertise in all different areas. Collaborations like this one show how the resources of the County can be combined to solve problems creatively and at the highest possible value for our customers.

Deputy Ben Callahan prepares the boat for disposal.

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Learn more

• Lake Geneva Management District
• King County Lake Stewardship Program
• King County Sheriff’s Office Marine Rescue Dive Unit

The Point Williams Buoy

On March 29, the crew of SoundGuardian, King County’s marine research vessel, re-deployed a water quality buoy that got loose earlier in the month at Point Williams, off Lincoln Park in West Seattle. In this video, watch Jim Devereaux, Bob Kruger, Houston Flores, and Christopher Barnes from the King County Environmental Laboratory re-anchor the buoy.

The Point Williams buoy is one of four automated, high-frequency data collection systems used by King County in marine waters and is the only floating platform — with the other three attached to piers or docks at Seattle Aquarium and inner and outer Quartermaster Harbor on Vashon-Maury Island. King County began using automated systems back in 2008 but the Point Williams buoy has been at the current location since 2013.

Sensors are used to continually collect data that is used to monitor water quality in Puget Sound.

The buoy functions as a platform to suspend multiple instruments into the top of the water column to take measurements that determine water quality in the Central Puget Sound basin.  Automated, water quality data collection allows measurements to be taken every 15 minutes of physical, chemical, and biological parameters. The result is improved information to determine variability on a weekly, even daily,  basis compared to traditional water quality measurements that are typically measured every two to four weeks.

The sensors are attached to the buoy which acts as a floating platform.

The data are transmitted via a cellular modem to a cloud data collection service, then transferred to the King County mooring data website where it can be viewed or downloaded within 30 minutes of data collection. Data undergo automatic quality checks to assess for issues in real-time as well as semi-annually by a data manager.

The data are used to characterize Puget Sound water conditions on numerous time scales (e.g., daily, seasonal, annual, inter-annual) and used for status and trends analysis, to compare with data from other locations in Puget Sound to assess spatial differences, populate or validate numerical Puget Sound models, and provide data for management decisions. The data from this water quality monitoring system are also sent to Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems to be included in a larger marine waters data collection network.

Check out more cool stuff from @KCEnviroLab on Instagram.

King County visits the Enumclaw iSTEM Expo

Protecting our water quality depends on understanding science and using math.

King County will show some of the ways math and science skills apply to jobs in the environment, on Feb. 8 at the Enumclaw Schools Foundation iSTEM Expo, 4 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., at the Enumclaw Expo Center.

“Math – The Universal Language” is the theme for 2018 and  employees from King County’s Water and Land Resources Division will be there with hands-on activities. Look for our Stormwater “CSI” booth, try the Enviroscape and see how water flows through watersheds, test water using the same tools we use in the field, and ask about how to find pollution! Science rocks!

Students learn how King County uses technology to map our stormwater system and protect it.

Salmon spawning at Rainbow Bend

Underwater video of spawning salmon at Rainbow Bend. from King County DNRP on Vimeo.

 

The Rainbow Bend Levee Removal and Floodplain Reconnection Project, completed in 2013, was a multi-partner, multi-objective effort to reduce flood risks and improve salmon habitat in the lower Cedar River. The work was done in two phases spanning more than ten years.

In the first phase, King County successfully helped move residents out of harm’s way. Single-family homes and a mobile-home park were threatened with chronic flooding, requiring emergency response and evacuations. King County purchased the flood-prone properties, helped residents relocate to homes in safer places, and then removed the unoccupied dwellings, creating a 40-acre open space.

In the second phase of the project the levee was removed, four logjams were constructed, two new channels and backwater habitat were created, and tens of thousands of native plants were installed. The goal was to improve salmon habitat and floodplain functions and diminish long-term maintenance costs along the trail.

Watch the project video: Restoring Rainbow Bend — Good for People and Fish

Large-scale, multi-objective projects like Rainbow Bend, where old levees are removed or set back, are central to restoring the viability of threatened Puget Sound fall Chinook salmon. At the same time, these projects can reduce flood risks to residents and infrastructure. Following a multi-objective project such as this, effectiveness monitoring is critical to improving the design and outcomes of future projects.

A comprehensive, 10-year monitoring project is underway to determine whether project goals and objectives are being met effectively and efficiently. The monitoring work is focused on changes in the river, large wood, fish habitat, and plant performance. Early results indicate that the project is working well. The channel is migrating again and the river is becoming more complex and suitable for juvenile and adult salmon. The number of juvenile Chinook salmon that can reside in the project site has increased. Adult salmon are spawning at high densities in the largest of the two side channels.

One of the ways King County monitors fish use in project sites is through the use of underwater video. Watching fish underwater allows us to directly observe how they are using their habitat and interacting with each other. In short, it allows us to enter their world and lets them show us what habitats are important.

For an in-depth look at the monitoring details, check out the Monitoring and Maintenance Report, Rainbow Bend Levee Removal and Floodplain Reconnection Project: Monitoring and Maintenance Report.

Logjams make the Cedar River unsafe for recreation, but they’re great for fish

A cottonwood spans the Cedar River, one of many downed trees that have led to the river’s closure.

The King County Sheriff’s Office announced earlier this month that a portion of the Cedar River is closed to all in-river recreational use for the second season in a row due to numerous logjams, downed trees, hanging limbs and other blockages.

The river is closed from river mile 4.5 to river mile 13.5, a nine-mile stretch from Renton to Maple Valley. Twelve blockages – nine of them serious – make the river too dangerous for recreation, according to the Sheriff’s Office. The blockages are similar in number and severity to last year – and all are due to naturally occurring processes.

John Koon, a senior engineer in the County’s Rivers Section, recently walked the banks of the Cedar and could see why law enforcement made the decision. He saw two punctured rafts wrapped around a logjam, a sobering sight. John has been monitoring rivers in King County for more than two decades. “I don’t remember the Cedar ever having so many hazards.”

But there’s an important twist in this ongoing discussion over the state of the Cedar River. The strainers, spanners and logjams may be bad for those who want to float the Cedar, but they’re excellent for fish, including two runs – fall chinook and steelhead – that are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and protected under tribal treaty rights.

Adding to the situation is the unique nature of the Cedar, a river that brings this dilemma into focus like no other in the region. The Cedar is just the right size to be closed by a spanner and just slow enough for some of those spanners to remain in place. It’s near an urban center – and thus to people who want recreate in it, including boaters, anglers and those who like to float the river. And all that wood provides invaluable habitat to ESA-listed fish, fish that the state and tribes co-manage with an eye towards ensuring their survival and resilience.

“We’re working right now with the tribes, the state and other jurisdictions to try to figure out the best path forward with the Cedar. But there are no good models,” said Josh Baldi, director of the Water and Land Resources Division.

“How do you make a river safe for recreationalists while improving habitat for fish? We know how to do this when designing restoration projects, but it’s far trickier with natural wood recruitment. This is largely unchartered terrain.”

So why does wood in a river matter so much? Large pieces of wood trap other pieces of wood, creating complex habitat that supports salmon at several stages in their life cycle, explains Sarah McCarthy, a senior ecologist in the County’s Water and Land Resources Division.

Wood, for instance, retains gravel, which is needed for spawning. It encourages riverbed scour, which in turn creates pools where salmon can rest, find deep, cool refuge and hide from predators. Logjams slow down the flow and sometimes split a channel, creating new channels and backwaters critical to healthy salmon runs. Wood is also the basis for an aquatic food web – invertebrates live in the downed trees and logs and occasionally fall into the river, where they’re snatched up by hungry fish.

“The research is clear that wood in rivers and streams improves habitat quality,” Sarah said.

Western Washington’s rivers used to be filled with wood. But over the course of the past century or so, much of that wood was removed or prevented from falling into rivers – the result of logging and agricultural practices, navigational improvements and flood control efforts.

Those actions came with a cost. The removal of wood led to the destruction of salmon habitat and added to the steady decline of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. Today, 17 distinct salmon populations are listed as threatened or endangered under the ESA in Washington. And while wood removal was seen as a way to provide flood protection, in many instances it made the situation worse – causing faster, more unconstrained flows, erosion and channelization.

Government agencies, including King County, are now seeking a new path, trying to balance all of these competing forces in support of rivers that are healthy and resilient and that are good for both people and fish. As a result, the County routinely incorporates wood into both restoration and flood control projects, using the best science and engineering practices to do so and keeping stakeholders – including river safety advocates and recreationalists – informed throughout the process.

Earlier this month, project managers in the Water and Land Resources Division held two public meetings to discuss several current projects that will use placed wood either to improve habitat or provide flood protection.

As for the Cedar, where naturally occurring wood – not wood used in restoration or flood control projects – is making in-water recreation dangerous, Kate Akyuz, a senior environmental scientist in the Rivers Section, is working with the Sheriff’s Office, state officials, tribal biologists and others to determine a course that makes sense. It’s possible, for instance, that some of the wood could be shifted or removed, she said, noting that doing so would require the County to mitigate for that removal by creating salmon habitat elsewhere.

Josh attended one of the recent public meetings about large wood where he discussed his own love of river rafting as well as the environmental challenges at a place like the Cedar River.

“We have a lot of needs we’re trying to balance in a river that is important to many different constituents,” he said after the meeting. “Our goal is to approach this issue using both solid science and thoughtful public policy and to do what’s right for both people and fish.”

This tree spans the Cedar at river mile 9.7.