Thanksgiving Day Stream Flow Surprise

I was half-aware that the rain really seemed to be really coming down Wednesday evening, but despite that fact, I was very surprised to see how high the stream was flowing on Thanksgiving morning.

Looking downstream from the east side of the stream

Looking upstream. Can't even see the (ahem....inadequately sized...) culvert that carries the stream under the street.

Looking downstream again, this time from the west side of the stream. You can see the live stakes sticking up on the western bank of the stream.

And back to normal on the beautiful, sunny day after Thanksgiving -

Beavers?!

Walking around the yard a week or so ago I was very surprised to see that a critter had been doing a little pruning on a Black Pussy Willow perched on the western bank of the stream. Here is a closer shot of the tooth marks -

Then a couple days ago, I found this -

Mission accomplished, I guess. Unfortunately for the beaver if it was trying to start a dam right here, the heavy flows from all of the rain lately swept the branches that made it into the water downstream.

It was interesting to see that the critter tried to "cut" up this large branch into smaller sections.

This is not the first time that we have suffered some minor damage from a beaver or the like. Several years ago I was shocked to find that something had done a number on some of the Western Red Cedars that are planted in a row outside of our front fence.

It tore/gnawed the bark off of a couple of the trees, like this -

...and cut off the tree closest to the stream -

This tree is obviously making a valient effort to recover!

I'm not bothered by the "pruning" of the pussy willow. It will recover nicely, I'm sure. And it isn't a native, anyway. I'm just a little nervous about the large trees along the stream in our yard that could be a much more dramatic loss! I know that large trees have been felled by beaver deep in Wetland #3 behind us. I'll definitely post an update if we see more evidence!

Adequate Erosion Control? I Don't Think So...

"Federal, state, and local regulations prohibit sediment-laden water from leaving a construction site or from entering drainage systems, surface water, or ground water"

- from the City of Kenmore "Erosion Control Posting Notice"

It is so frustrating to see a blatant disregard for the erosion control measures that are required on construction sites. There is a perfect example of this right down the street from where Little Swamp Creek passes under 192nd street -

This site does not drain directly into Little Swamp Creek, but it does drain directly into Wetland #3 (the large wetland roughly bordered by 192nd, 73rd, Bothell Way and 80th) which Swamp Creek and Little Swamp Creek run through. And by that I mean that the muddy runoff from this construction site is draining into storm drains in the street that directly connect to the wetland across the street from the site.

At one spot, runoff flows off the front of the site and onto the sidewalk...

...off the sidewalk and into the street to a gutter drain.

At this point I would like to point out that the minimum requirement for mulch is a thickness of 2" at any spot. This site has a ridiculously light sprinkling of straw mulch, as seen in the photo above, and some plastic tarps on dirt piles. The tarps were blown half off the piles by recent winds.

Muddy runoff also flows down the cul de sac road and onto 192nd...

....where it drains right into this storm drain that goes under the street and into the northern boarder of Wetland #3.

To make this situation even more frustrating, this is what it looked like over a year ago. Obviously nothing has improved -

Now, it is not like there aren't regulations in place in the city of Kenmore that are supposed to prevent this situation. Here is a link to a PDF version of Kenmore's regulations - Erosion Control Posting Notice. (In fact, this notice is supposed to be posted at the construction site) This particular construction site is not tucked up some dead-end road somewhere. It is located on a fairly major east-west road in northern Kenmore that I'm sure the city building inspector has to drive down at least occasionally. As further evidence that the inspector must have seen this situation, for a time a red "Stop Work" notice was posted on the single new house that is under construction so far on the site, so obviously the building inspector has visited. I would love to know why in the world does he not enforce the erosion control requirements.

I wonder why there isn't even a white construction notice board on the site?

About a year and a half ago Little Swamp Creek was impacted by inadequate erosion control measures and inadequate storm water collection from a couple of construction sites well upstream, within the city of Bothell. This is what the stream looked like all of the time for days in our yard -

Usually the water is silty after a good rain, but that clears up fairly soon. Not only was the water not clearing up, it was a strange, lighter silty color.

A little detective work led to the discovery of this pipe draining muddy water off of a construction site on 3rd Avenue SE -

There were two large construction sites with large, muddy expanses that (obviously) drain towards Little Swamp Creek.

Evidently the storm water collection vaults were overwhelmed and not functioning properly. Maybe due to the lack of erosion control?!! (This hay had obviously been spread VERY recently) Work was stopped on at least one of the projects and it's vault needed to be pumped out immediately. We were thankful to the City of Bothell for responding to the problem right away.

Here is a recent picture of a very large construction site in Bothell that has been sitting for quite a while without any action. It looks to me like it is a good example of proper mulch application, with a nice thick layer of straw covering all of the dirt. Once again, it looks like the city of Bothell deserves special recognition for actually enforcing the regulations that are in place to protect the quality of our waterways.

Drainage Ditch Contrast

I was walking along 80th today and happened upon an interesting contrast in drainage ditch designs, conveniently located on either side of a fence.

The one on the left side of the fence must have been part of the surface water management plan when this little cul de sac was built. Can you see the mounds of rock placed perpendicularly periodically along the ditch? I would imagine those are for slowing down the flow of the runoff a bit and helping silt to settle out behind the mounds. That ditch also appears to be gravel-lined.

The ditch on the right is an interesting contrast. Just a steep-walled dirt ditch leading out to the ditch in the street.

The differences between these ditches remind me a bit of the stretch of Little Swamp Creek going through our yard. For the most part it is contained in a fairly narrow, deep channel. Over time the base of some of the steep bank areas become eroded enough that chunks fall into the stream, sending more silt downstream. Here's a good example of a chunk of bank that fell after the heavy rains last week -

The bank is only a foot or so high, but still... Ideally, we would love to create a gradually sloping bank along this stretch of the stream (on the side away from our house). The Adopt-A-Stream Foundation came up with a plan and received a permit to do the work, but the grant funding ran out. Stay tuned - I won't give up hope yet. Meanwhile, we have the great large woody debris that was installed this summer with the help of The L.E.A.F. School, which will help stabilize the bank in a few places, slow down the flow a tad and help collect silt and small pebbles. We also have a bunch of live willow and red twig dogwood stakes stuck into the bank in the worst spots. As those grow roots, they will definitely help hold the bank together.

A Good Rain

We had an inch or so of rain over the weekend so I finally have a collection of before/during/after pictures of water flow in the stream to post.

This is looking to the southwest corner of our yard (downstream) on July 30th -

(I think that's the lowest flow I've ever seen in the stream.)

Here is the same view in the early afternoon of September 6, after about an inch of rainfall overnight -

And this was taken this morning, September 8th -

I'm noticing that the silt layer at the bottom of the steam has been washed away to some degree.

Here is a shot of the large woody debris added to the middle of our stretch of stream taken on July 30 -

Immediately following the rain when the flow was high -

(Notice that the lower log is completely under water?)

And today -

(You can see the gravel bed that was hiding under the silt)

One more spot to show is the large woody debris added to the streambank at the north end of our yard. This was taken on July 30th also -

Here is a (really bad) photo of the same spot after the rain -

I'm afraid that it is a bit difficult to appreciate from photos the difference in silt on my white rock experiment site, but here goes. This is the before shot, on June 29th -

And this is what it looked like after the high flow from the rain receeded -

Sand and gravel revealed again, although the rocks are definitely buried quite a bit.

Here's a picture of this experiment at the beginning -

And just for a little drama, here are a couple pictures of the highest flow that we have seen, on December 3, 2007 -

This is a wider shot of that area at the north end of our yard where large woody debris has been added. The stream was flowing over the road on this day. (The picture quality is terrible because it was POURING rain and I was snapping pictures very quickly for the sake of protecting the camera)

This is a wider view of the southwest corner of our yard on 12/3/07. For orientation, that cedar tree that is in the middle/top of this photo is the same tree that is in the upper right corner of the photos at the beginning of this post. To the right of it in this photo you can see where the water flow knocked out part of our fence. I forgot that happened...

Freshwater mussel in Little Swamp Creek

Something in the stream that looked vaguely mussel-like had been catching my eye for a while now. It was near our foot bridge, so I would look down at it every day and wonder what kind of trash it was that was half buried in the streambed. Today I noticed that the crack/gap down the middle was closed for the first time, so I was finally inspired to investigate. I was surprised to discover that it is a real, live mussel!

According to the King County website, we have a freshwater mussel in our area called the Western Pearlshell (Margaritifera falcata). I believe that is what I've found. Here is a link to the King County Freshwater Mussels homepage. According to what I read there, these mussels are a good indicator of stream health because of their sensitivity to pollutants. So finding one is good news, though I'm sure finding a bed full would be even better...

The Western Pearlshell pictured on the King County website appears to be about the size of the one that I found, and the information says that the one in their picture is estimated to be around 50 years old!

I'm a little worried about the look of the hinge area of this one -

The creatures that lurk in the stream....

As a part of the stream restoration event held in our yard last week, the guys from Adopt-A-Stream put a few live traps in the stream overnight to get a feel for what is or is not living in this section of Little Swamp Creek. The traps were baited with punctured cans of cat food. I know that is a BAD picture, but I just had to put it on here anyway. Here's what those traps looked like out of the water -

This is a second style of trap that they used, and what it caught -

We had not seen any crayfish or any evidence of crayfish (parts left behind by raccoons, for example...) in the stream for several years, so we were pretty excited to see that they are still living in there.

Then we saw this from another trap -

Woo hoo! That is two crayfish, a sculpin and a Pacific giant salamander! What you have to realize is that all we see when looking in the stream during the day are some small (2-4") fish (probably cutthroat trout or coho fry) zipping around, caddisfly larvae crawling along the stream bottom, and water skeeters on top of the water. Those are great, but this was an amazing discovery and so encouraging as indicators of a relatively healthy stream!

Here's a SECOND salamander, from a different trap -

Mighty cute!

One trap caught only sculpin -

I probably must emphasize here that Adopt-A-Stream had a permit to trap and release in the stream. They didn't keep these creatures out for very long, but it was just the perfect thing for Eric and I and the students from The LEAF School to see what inhabits the stream.

Interestingly enough, there weren't any of the little fry that we see zipping around in the stream. Unfortunately they are food for these other creatures and if any were trapped they may have been eaten. Oops.

Later in the day, CK and Loren from Adopt-A-Stream collected macro-invertebrates from the stream bed so the LEAF School students could figure out what was there. I'll talk more about all of the amazing learning opportunities AAS set up in a later post, but for now here is a picture of some of what they found -

And finally, here is a critter that just happened to show up at the right place at the right time for some ooo-ing and ah-ing and a picture -

I'm afraid that it might be a young bullfrog, which I don't think is a good thing for the native amphibians. I haven't been able to identify it yet, so if anybody out there reading this can tell me what this is, please do!