Conservation efforts thrive amidst development

Conservation efforts in the ever-growing cities of Fife, Milton and Edgewood are going strong thanks to two organizations working to save wetlands, salmon populations and native plant life suffering under urban development - Friends of the Hylebos Wetlands and the Pierce County Native Plant Salvage Program.

Friends of the Hylebos takes care of the 600-acre West Hylebos wetlands and the Hylebos Creek watershed, which begins near the Sea-Tac Mall in Federal Way and flows through the Hylebos waterway into Commencement Bay. The 90-acre West Hylebos Wetlands State Park is just one mile west of I-5 in southern Federal Way. In the early 1980s, Friends of the Hylebos Wetlands coalesced and spent seven years trying to convince state legislators that the area was not a useless swamp and to designate it as protected land.

One of the last remaining swamps in South King County, the area is home to a vast array of life, from 27 species of moss to more than 100 types of birds. Many tributary streams flow into the wetlands that help purify the water flowing into Hylebos Creek and ultimately into water supplies to Federal Way, Milton, Fife, Edgewood, Puyallup and Tacoma.

“The benchmark of our program is the Hylebos Creek Conservation Initiative,” said Friends Executive Director Chris Carrel. “The goal of the initiative is to create a natural habitat preserve totaling more than 745 acres covering 10 miles of creek and restore it to a state that’s functional and supports salmon and wildlife. We’ve successfully preserved 385 acres so far. That leaves us with 360 acres that we’re trying to preserve over the next two decades.”

Hylebos Creek, home to chinook, coho and Chum Salmon as well as steelhead and Cutthroat Trout, was historically one of Puget Sound’s most productive small salmon streams, Carrel explained. “I grew up in the area and used to play in the creek as a kid, and it was just bank-to-bank full of returning salmon,” he said.

Today, these numbers have been severely compromised due to increasing commercial development of the area causing loss of habitat through flooding and pollution.

The Friends of the Hylebos has taken a special interest in the expansion of State Route (SR) 167 that is in the process of being extended from Sumner through the Puyallup-Fife Valley to connect with SR 509. The proposed SR 167 corridor will be anywhere from 250-890 feet away from the Hylebos Creek. The Friends is working with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to combine an environmentally progressive means of storm water management and environmental mitigation to preserve and restore much of the lower Hylebos floodplain there.

Edgewood City Council­member Michael Deckert is a strong supporter of Friends of the Hylebos and the native plant salvage program. “They’re doing some really good work,” he said. “They get a lot done with a minimum of resources,” he added, pointing to Carrel’s energetic “go-getter” nature for the Friends having accomplished so much. 

Carrel gave an optimistic prognosis for the Hylebos. “We – the global we – have created a lot of improvement to the watershed, so I would characterize the stream as improving,” he said. “If it were a patient in the hospital, I would say it’s out of intensive care but we’re still watching it carefully and attending to it. It’s on its way back to health.”

Protecting Native Plants

The Pierce County Native Plant Salvage Program focuses its efforts on local lands undergoing development in order to save plants native to our region from being destroyed. Protecting indigenous flora also preserves insect and wildlife species that need these plants to survive.

The program’s founder, Anna Thurston, is a former water conservation specialist for the city of Tacoma with a background in native plant landscaping. She also chairs the South Sound chapter of the Washington Native Plant Society.

“We will basically go to a construction site and collect whatever is salvageable – trees and shrubs shorter than five feet or so because the likelihood of their survival is much enhanced,” Thurston explained. “We’ll either hold those plants at a facility or take them to a place that needs plants such as natural parks.

“A lot of this is about salmon restoration and this has always been the driver for me whether I’m the water conservationist, the coordinator for the plant salvage program or on my own as a landscape architect,” she said.

With over 50 partners ranging from city/county government to conservation groups, the program has done some important work preserving native species. Thurston said that Olympic Property Groups recently invited her and volunteers to dig plants at a site in Gig Harbor where the developers are constructing a new Costco and business center.

“It’s a community effort,” she said. “We invite volunteers to come and dig plants for a couple hours for whatever recipient might want plants. Then for another hour they are allowed to dig for themselves to their hearts’ content and take those plants home with them.”
Prairie plant life is also of great concern to Thurston. “Only 7 percent of our remnant prairie is found in this part of the world,” she said. “A lot of the plants are going by the wayside.”

The types of plants found on prairie lands include a spring lily called “camas,” wild strawberries, blue elderberry, goldenrod, red flowering currant, chocolate lilies, wild ginger, red huckleberries, shade loving yellow violets and big leaf maples.

Through its Stewardship Program, volunteers commit to 11 weeks of instruction on how to dig up and relocate native plants. Deckert of the Edgewood city council is a “the star of the class,” as Thurston put it, due to his hard work helping the salvaging program. He has dedicated many weekends to picking up a shovel and digging plants from sites like Frederickson Prairie at 192nd off Canyon Road.

“It’s important to salvage these materials because they’re an important resource,” he said. Nelson Nature Park in Edgewood has been the recipient of these plants, he added. “We’ll salvage anywhere developers allow access. There’s a new park going in at Gig Harbor and we’re hoping to salvage plants there, then reinstall them once the park is ready for landscaping.” He also named the Puyallup School District, the site of the new Glacier Bay Junior High on South Hill and Pierce College as other sites where he has helped dig or transplant.

Contact Friends of the Hylebos at www.hylebos.org, and the Pierce County Native Plant Salvage Program at www.ssstewarship.org. Both are in need of volunteer help.