By Angela Cochran
Spring is a time of new beginnings – from cherry blossoms and tulips to hatching chicks and ducklings, we see signs of new life after our long, gray winter. In Grays Harbor County, our crews witnessed such an event at a recently completed fish passage site on State Route 8 near McCleary. Remember all those adult salmon we showed you last fall? We are seeing the fruits of their labor – or at least the fruits of some more recent spawning salmon – baby fish!
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| Our workers saw dozens of baby coho under SR 8 in early April. |
These coho salmon fry (the term for baby fish) hatched recently upstream from SR 8 near Mox Chehalis Road East. In summer 2024, we removed the small pipe culvert that blocked fish from swimming under the highway. The new culvert is a large concrete box that allows fish to access habitat that they haven’t been able to get to since the highway was originally built.
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| We spotted these adult fish upstream of the new culvert in fall 2024. |
The stream is a tributary of Mox Chehalis Creek. It may not seem like much, but this small stream is clearly important to the ecosystem, as we can see that salmon are spawning in it. According to our partners at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the stream also supports other species of salmon, such has chum, as well as resident, steelhead and sea run cutthroat trout. And that’s just the protected fish species. For a small stream, that’s a lot of fish! It stands to reason that giving them access to even more habitat, even just a mile or so, will help them have room to thrive.
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| More coho fry in the stream under SR 8. |
What our crews report seeing in real time is that more habitat means more fish. It’s like that disembodied voice said in that little baseball movie from the 80s, “If you build it, they will come.” This concept also applies to neighboring culverts. Sometimes there are multiple culverts making fish passage difficult or blocking it altogether in a stream but only one that we, as a state highway department, have the authority to correct. However, once we correct ours, counties, cities and even private property owners may be more likely to receive grant funding to help correct theirs.
Good news for highway users
In addition to the baby news, we have some good news for travelers on top of the highway. We expect to complete work at all five locations early. When we designed the project, we expected stream work to take two summers to complete. That meant we would start opening lanes at each site in the fall of 2025. Since our contractor, Cecannti, Inc., was able to complete all the stream work in one summer, we are able to start opening lanes early. As of Monday, May 19, traffic is now back to its original configuration with two lanes in each direction at Camp Creek in Montesano and the Mox Chehalis Creek tributary east of McCleary.
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| A look under the new US 12 bridges in Montesano. |
Daytime lane closures will still occur as our crews complete landscaping and other final work along the roadway. This will mostly happen on weekdays, which is good news if you’re heading to the beach on a weekend. We also have to remove the large temporary light poles. Once that happens, the speed limit reduction will go away at those two sites.
That will leave only three work zones with around-the-clock lane closures. The speed limit will remain 50 mph approaching Elma from either direction. We’re working at these locations to get them to the next stage throughout spring and summer. You’ll see temporary changes to the roadway while that happens as well as some rolling slowdowns. This allows us to leave one lane open in each direction while paving and striping the closed lanes. Please don’t pass vehicles slowing traffic. They are there for your safety and to protect our workers.
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| When a traffic backup triggers the Queue Warning System, this electronic sign will display messages like "Traffic Backups Present", "Slow or Stopped Traffic", "Use Both Lanes, Take Turns at Merge". |
Travelers will also notice the Queue Warning System moved closer to the remaining work zones approaching Elma. The Queue Warning System uses sensors to detect traffic backups and then displays messages on an electronic sign. The messages let people know what to do as they approach the work zone. We’ve seen these signs activate during busy holiday weekends, so you may notice them if you’re headed to or from the beach for Memorial Day.
Approaching the finish line
We expect to complete work at all sites in the fall. We want to thank you all for your patience. We know it’s been a long road (ha ha!), but we’ve almost arrived at our destination, and you will, too! When planning your summer trip to the beach, make sure to visit our online open house for information on all of the projects happening on the Olympic Peninsula. Check the statewide travel map and WSDOT app for real-time information before heading out the door.
1 comment:
Not sure where or when these photos were taken, but as of today, May 24, there is NO water flowing through the new culvert. Despite a fair amount falling out of the county culvert 100’ north of the freeway, the flow peters out and by the time it is halfway under the westbound lanes it has totally disappeared. So then all of the little fish supposedly noted in the photos, of which I saw zero onsite, would now be stranded, due to the open-bottomed culvert, presumably until the fall rains. And how is this a $10M improvement over what was there?
Prior to this “improvement” there was a tiny but year-round flow here. Now the creek bed is dry south of the freeway.
So please explain again how stopping the flow with a pervious open-bottom culvert was an improvement worth $10,000,000? Are there no engineers left at WSDOT, just tree-huggers? I know fish passage improvements were mandated, but does that apply to tiny streams that only have 100’ of habitat gain, if any? What a colossal waste of precious funding.
Salmon spawning in Mox Chehalis Creek, where this tiny stream terminates, is in mid-November. I plan to again visit the 100’ long stream bed upstream of this project then. Any WSDOT biologist who would like to accompany me is welcome. If we see a single fish I will shut up and go away.
I am forwarding this discussion to Sen. Jeff Wilson and Rep Jim Walsh. They need to be aware of boondoggles like this.
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