Keep supporting Discovery Bay businesses!

The colorful blankets you see on both sides of the road at Discovery Bay may catch your eye at 45 mph, but they are only a hint of the variety that you may find inside the diverse businesses. There are more than a few fishy items!

Stop and check out the antiques, blankets and clothing, fishing tackle and bait, crap pots, and groceries. Or sit down for a meal at one of the two restaurants along the road.

We encourage you to stop and shop at these businesses, and thank them for their patience and support of the restoration work. Tell them the salmon people sent you!

Please drive safely and cautiously on all your travels, and especially around Discovery Bay!

In today's post: a few items on sale at Lucky Deer Trading Post.

A diversity of economically priced merchandise

From the outside, you may not peg Lucky Deer as your go-to location for tweezers, but our crew swears by the $1 pincers for sale. They spend a good many days removing blackberry brambles, so we trust them when it comes to tweezers

Friendly proprietor Karen Blessing

Salmon patches!

Support Discovery Bay Local Business!

The store and restaurant owners along Discovery Bay have been very understanding of the construction work that is taking place in their vicinity. During this time, NOSC is doing as much as we can to avoid impacting business. If you are in Discovery Bay this next month, please stop by and enjoy a juicy burger from Fat Smitty's (great for after a hike in the Olympics) or shop any of the many stores in the area. Let them know you are a friend of the salmon!

Do you wonder what is going on alonside Highway 101 in Discovery Bay?! Here is your Answer!

Our Project Manager, Kevin Long, has been busy supervising the installment of the Discovery Bay waterline. It may not look like salmon habitat restoration but it is! It is the first phase towards the restoration of 21 acres of nearshore and estuary habitat in Discovery Bay.

Left: The 12 inch waterline casing is delivered along the side of highway 20. This will be fused together into a single pipeline that will go under Salmon Creek. Right: The waterline casing is fused. The drill will hook on to the end of this pipe and pull the pipe into the shaft that has been bored previously. 

Left: The drill uses water and bentonite to lubricate the bore. The water, bentonite and bore cuttings are received at either end of the bore. The water and bentonite are reused by the drill and the other materials are hauled off-site as clean fill. Right: Drilling fluid is returned to the reclaimer for recycling. While the process appears messy, a well thought out system of pits and erosion control devices ensure no soil or silt leave the site or enter the nearby creeks or wetlands.

Left: The fused pipe laid out alongside of the highway is attached to the drill head with a swivel and pulled into the bore. Right: The horizontal drilling rig pulls the 12 inch pipe from the ground. The pipe extends away from the machine and comes up on the other side of Salmon Creek 620 feet away. The pipe is installed 26 feet under the bed of Salmon Creek. 

Stay tuned for more updates!

Local company awarded waterline relocation contract

Excavators broke ground at Discovery Bay this week, in the first segment of a multi-year, multi-million dollar restoration project. NOSC has awarded Seton Construction a $785,000 contract to relocate a waterline out of critical nearshore habitat and onto an upland location along Highway 101. "Once [the waterline is] completed, restoration work will begin to improve habitat conditions along the shoreline northeast of the railroad cars," said Kevin Long, NOSC's Discovery Bay Project manager.

The Port Hadlock Washington Conservation Corps (WCC) crew has been involved with the project, as well. The crew spent a couple days at the site last month salvaging sheet metal roofing from an old mill building and pulling invasive Scotch broom and ivy. Check out their blog for great photos and commentary.

This project would not have been possible without the support of many funders (a complete list of project partners is listed to the left). Stay tuned to the blog for updates on the progress of the project!

Discovery Bay Restoration Overview

1. Waterline Relocation

GOAL: Relocate private waterline from RR grade and trestles to clear the way for the habitat restoration project.
 
ACTIONS: Relocate and upgrade the waterline. The new waterline will travel from the source, along the Highway 101, Gardiner Road and Cemetery Road right of ways before hooking back into the existing system.

2. Maynard Nearshore Restoration

GOAL: Restore 1,800 feet of marine shoreline impacted by an abandoned RR grade to improve habitat conditions for salmon. 

ACTIONS: Removal of portions of the RR grade, all shoreline armoring, a creosote railway trestle and a   defunct tide gate. Three small creek mouths in the area will be restored and reconnected to the bay. Old concrete bulkheads and cobbles “paving” the beaches will be removed and replaced with sands and gravels suitable for forage fish spawning and shellfish recruitment. 

3. North Site Estuary Restoration (Completed 2008)

GOAL: Return a former salt marsh that was filled with wood waste and industrial fill back to salt marsh to benefit juvenile salmon and birds.

ACTIONS: In 2008, 25,000 cubic yards (2000 dump trucks!) of fill and wood waste were removed from the historic salt marsh. Sawdust and veneer chips were disposed of in the marsh in the mid 1900s. Groundwater seeping through the wood waste  ‘leached' compounds like sulfur and ammonia which created toxic conditions for aquatic life in an existing tidal channel adjacent to the wood waste pile.  

4. South Site Estuary Restoration (Completed 2008)

GOAL: Create healthy salt marsh habitat to replace the habitat lost by the construction of Highway 101 in order to increase juvenile salmon and waterfowl habitat.
 
ACTIONS: In 2008, machines excavated soils down to salt marsh elevations to connect the new marsh to Salmon Creek and Discovery Bay. Some of the excavated material was moved to an upland disposal site on the same property, and some was hauled off site.

5. Salmon Creek Channel Restoration (Completed 2004)

GOAL: Repair a straightened channelized section of Salmon Creek important for Summer Chum spawning.
 
ACTIONS: In 2003 and 2004, a new, re-meandered channel 2,500 feet long was constructed by the Jefferson County  Conservation District. Logjams were installed and native trees and shrubs were planted along the bank by NOSC. The site is currently enrolled in the Conservation District’s CREP program planting a 180 foot riparian buffer along a 3,500 foot length of stream. This 29 acre buffer is now home to over 18,000 trees.

 6. Snow Creek Riparian Restoration (Completed 2012)

GOAL: Increase stream health and riparian health in the lower reaches of Snow Creek. 

ACTIONS: Remove invasive species. Plant native species and maintain the planting. NOSC’s WCC crew prepped the site by removing a 15’ wall of  blackberry and scalping reed canary grass.  School groups and community volunteers helped plant over 5,500 native trees and shrubs at the site which are maintained by the WCC crew. 

7. Snow Creek Estuary Restoration

GOAL: Improve function of the Snow Creek estuary and salt marsh and their connection to Snow Creek.

ACTIONS: Remove RR grade fill and 3 RR trestles. Remove berms, fill and septic field along the banks of Snow Creek. These fills have changed the hydrology of the area so that Snow Creek has no connection to adjacent salt marsh and have disrupted important tidal processes that compromise the marsh.

8. Septic System Relocation

GOAL: Relocate the drainfield near Snow Creek and wetlands.

ACTION: The septic drainfield for the Valley View Motel is located on land along Snow Creek and Discovery Bay that is slated for habitat restoration. The landowner is Jefferson Land Trust and the septic field sits in an easement on the property. Significant effort and cooperation from the Motel owner have resulted in NOSC being able to  build  a new septic system with the drainfield located at an upland site for the Motel.

9. Proposed Olympic Discovery Trail Route

GOAL: Install an important link in the Olympic Discovery Trail which will increase recreational and public access opportunities around Discovery Bay. 

ACTIONS: Construct a multi-use trail in the Department of Transportation right-of-way and on Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife property. This project is led by Jefferson County Public Works and Peninsula Trails Coalition.