Schoolhouse Creek Restoration

In January 2001, the Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SRFB) awarded Washington Trout funding for the Schoolhouse Creek Restoration Project, to re-establish natural processes on a tributary to Southwest Washington’s Washougal River. Washington Trout has been working closely with the Clark-Skamania Flyfishers and the Camas-Washougal Wildlife League to develop the project, which will restore historical access to, enhance, and protect 23.6 acres of Schoolhouse Creek, a spring fed wetland-complex tributary to the Washougal River.

WT Executive Director Kurt Beardslee and Tony Meyer, member of the Camas-Washougal Wildlife League, taking water temperature samples on Schoolhouse Creek as it enters the Washougal River.

The Schoolhouse Creek watershed is the only remaining large, high quality wetland-tributary ecosystem left in the anadromous reach of the main stem Washougal River. The restored wetland complex will provide critical off-channel spawning, rearing and over-wintering habitat, and summer high water-temperature refuge, for coho, resident and sea-run cutthroat trout, and ESA-listed steelhead.

WT Executive Director Kurt Beardslee and members of the Columbia Land Trust survey a wooded wetland on the Schoolhouse Creek project site.

WT will enhance the existing spring-fed wetland by installing Large Woody Debris and planting riparian vegetation, and recover rearing and spawning habitat by restoring and reconnecting some ditched tributaries, and re-watering ponds connected to the existing wetland-complex. Project funding includes acquisition money to buy the project site, ensuring the permanent protection and maintenance of these critical habitats.