Local Waterways Spared From Dam Construction

Seth Cool is a conservation associate at Northwest Ecosystem Alliance. He grew up on Bainbridge Island and graduated from Western’s Huxley College. In his spare time, he enjoys backpacking, sailing, bicycling and reading.

Late last fall I was shocked when my employer, Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, asked me to help stop two new dams proposed on tributaries of the Nooksack River’s Middle Fork. Ballaton Power, of Boise, Idaho, proposed building a dam and powerhouse on Clearwater Creek and another on Warm Creek. These dams would provide hydroelectric power at the expense of endangered species habitat and nearly de-water two creeks that could become excellent salmon spawning grounds.

To protect the habitat in and around these creeks, Northwest Ecosystem Alliance teamed up with the Nooksack Indian Tribe and the national organization American Whitewater to intervene. I soon learned that FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) erroneously believed that citizens in Whatcom County would welcome these dams and power production.

FERC had held a public meeting a few years ago, and while those in attendance clearly voiced their concerns and opposition, FERC decided to recommend that these projects be licensed. So, Northwest Ecosystem Alliance sponsored our own public forum last winter and invited experts from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Western Washington University’s Huxley College, the Nooksack Indian Tribe and American Whitewater to educate the community about the impacts of the proposed dams.

At the forum, it quickly became apparent that virtually every attendee and specialist opposed the dams. We made sure FERC understood this and the agency then increased their pressure on Ballaton Power to explain how they would secure shoreline permits from Whatcom County, and financing to build the dams.

When Ballaton failed to fulfill promises regarding permits and failed to outline how the project would be financed, FERC denied the Clearwater project in February, 2003, and the Warm Creek project in March. The denial came as wonderful news for salmon, marbled murrelets and spotted owls in the Middle Fork.

I had been up the Middle Fork road (Forest Service Road 38) enough times to remember where it crosses the Clearwater Creek. The Clearwater is a beautiful, wide creek with large sandstone boulders and offers excellent fishing and whitewater kayaking. The area is also culturally important to members of the Nooksack Indian Tribe.

To me, it’s the first indicator that I’m out of the muddy lowlands. In decades past, the DNR logged off the Clearwater basin right up to the adjoining Mt. Baker Wilderness boundaries; but more recently, they’ve gone to great lengths to stabilize old logging roads and pull culverts from the basin to improve migration for threatened bull trout. The potential for functional salmon habitat in the Clearwater Creek is incredible.

Warm Creek is a bit further up the road and a bit more obscure. Since I had never heard of it, I set out to have a look.

The banks of Warm Creek are incredibly steep. The bottom 1,000 feet of the creek have a relatively shallow slope and are passable to fish, but above that, the creek becomes a cascade of whitewater broken by rocks and logs. This steepness is probably what kept DNR out of two patches of old-growth trees that remain along the banks, but the fast water that runs down these slopes also made Ballaton Power dream of piping Warm Creek through a turbine.

To get to the proposed dam site, I took a spur road up through old DNR clearcuts. The road ends at Warm Creek where a measuring station and orange construction benchmarks mark the dam site. Where the dam would have been, a one-acre pool would have fed a pipeline—the course already marked by yellow flagging hanging along surveyor lines cut through the forest.

The plan was to cut a 75-foot wide swath where they could suspend a pipeline on the steep slopes. The swath would have enabled crows and other corvids to chase marbled murrelets and discover their eggs, (the birds simply lay them directly on the moss of wide tree branches) and would have created edge effect (opening up the old-growth microclimate to damaging light and heat).

Downstream from the dam site are two stands of old-growth forest. The larger stand houses marbled murrelets, and both stands offer some of the last remaining spotted owl habitat on DNR land in the region.

To see the old growth, I had to bushwhack through an old clearcut, thick with young trees. I lowered myself down a steep slope, through a thick growth of young trees, and past huge cedar stumps out into an opening. From there I could see Warm Creek and got my first glimpse of towering firs and cedars. Here, shaggy, old, broken-topped trees tower above the creek at odd angles.

Where Warm Creek flows through this stand, it’s too dark for brush to grow. Instead, the banks are covered in soft green moss. I sat on a huge moss-covered log above a dark pool and contemplated the scenery. It was one of the most beautiful places I have been in a long time. §