Now that a hefty 10,000-year setback levee has been built along the Dungeness River, it’s time to get the new floodplain filled with native vegetation.
In 2021, the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe constructed a new setback levee to replace the harmful 1964 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dike that butted against the river, restricting river flow and damaging salmon habitat. The old levee is expected to be removed this summer.
The tribe will spend the next two years planting 35,000 native plants throughout the 56-acre floodplain in a project dubbed “River’s Edge Reveg.” This reconnected area will evolve into healthy salmon habitat while protecting nearby properties and the Dungeness community from flooding, said Hilton Turnbull, the tribe’s habitat biologist.
The plants will create a floodplain forest that will encourage the development of salmon habitat and keep non-native plants from establishing while stabilizing soils and hindering riverbank erosion, he said. As trees age and fall into the river, they will provide refuge for juvenile and adult salmon, stabilize river channels and provide side-channel habitat that fish need to grow and reproduce.
New vegetation includes native species such as serviceberry, Grand fir, cottonwood and Douglas fir. The tribe also is planting coastal redwood and giant sequoia to help establish southern conifer species in an attempt to make floodplain revegetation projects more resilient in the face of a changing climate, Turnbull said. Those trees are nursery stock grown in Olympia and were cloned from some of the largest specimens in northern California and southern Oregon.
The River’s Edge project overall is a three-pronged effort, Turnbull said: To increase Dungeness salmon productivity by reconnecting lost floodplain, to conserve farmland and to restore the river to a more natural state.
It’s only taken two years from when the tribe purchased the 65 acres of land in 2020, constructed the 5,000-foot-long setback levee in 2021 and initiated the vegetation planting in early 2022, which is extremely quick for such a large-scale project, he said.
“It’s a good fit for everyone,” Turnbull said. “We were able to accomplish three really great things at once with this work.”
The planting effort is in partnership with the local Washington Conservation Corps crew, the North Olympic Salmon Coalition and Clallam County Conservation District. The tribe is overseeing the maintenance and long-term stewardship of the property.
Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe natural resources technician Steve Irish talks with habitat biologist Hilton Turnbull about planting sites on the newly developed floodplain along the Dungeness River. Story and photos: Tiffany Royal
