Shedding Daylight on Padden Creek
Restoration on Padden Creek in Bellingham seeks to improve salmon habitat, water quality and tie the broader community together.
A sign describes the goal of the restoration project along with the different organizations that are helping do the work. // Will Story
Story by Connor Garrod
Updated on 3/16/2023
This article has been edited post-publication for accuracy and clarity. For more information, contact The Planet Team at planet@wwu.edu
March 14, 2023
The local babbling brook that runs through Happy Valley is known by many names: Padden Creek, Sis’lit-chum, home. Covered by vegetation and waste for the last 100 years, Padden Creek is the site of continuing restoration for salmon populations with ties to local and Indigenous communities.
The current $1 million project on Padden Creek was born ten years ago to improve water quality, fish habitat and flood storage. The original restoration projects that took place over 20 years ago involved uncovering the stream buried by anthropogenic pressures. This is a process called daylighting.
These daylighting efforts took four mayor terms and community input to convince city officials. Without these passionate voices, this restoration project would not be where it is today.
“Restoration is a cultural activity,” said James Helfield, an ecology professor at Western Washington University. “The fact that we are willing to devote time and energy and funding to the restoration project indicates that those objectives align with our cultural values.”
Padden Creek, nestled between vibrant green spaces, neighborhoods and commercial zones, flows approximately 2.7 miles from Lake Padden out to Bellingham Bay. It used to hold five miles of accessible salmon habitat, according to the City of Bellingham.
The upper portion of Padden Creek near Lake Padden. Feb. 2. // Will Story
“My family grew up fishing. We love creeks, we love being around the water, and I think I just grew up loving nature and water in creeks,” said Wendy Scherrer, a longtime Happy Valley resident. “I remember going into Padden Creek and coming out with little leeches on my ankle.”
Padden Creek is one of many streams that has been overexploited by human development such as expanding residential areas. Restoration projects began because the land wasn’t properly cared for, a problem rooted in the legacy of colonization, as stated in a 2021 study by Simon Fraser University.
Restoring nature
Today, the restoration project is on the stretch of Padden Creek between 24th and 30th street, an area inhabited by residents and businesses along Old Fairhaven Parkway. This space serves as an entrance to downtown Fairhaven.
Two well-camouflaged deer walk through the Padden Creek restoration site on the afternoon of Feb. 19 as it starts to rain. // Will Story
The project is under the guidance of the City of Bellingham Department of Natural Resources and their design consultants, Inter-Fluve. It is divided in three phases, with the first completed on January 10, 2023 at the confluence with Connelly Creek. The other two phases will occur on different stretches of Padden Creek.
During phase one, the City of Bellingham restored the creek banks with native vegetation, created stream channels and added large woody debris structures known as riparian buffers. Woody debris will increase stability and complexity of stream channels, creating sediments and pools that are important for salmon.
Vegetation planted along the banks improves water quality by lowering water temperatures and buffers unwanted bacteria and stormwater pollutants for spawning salmon.
The improvements made along Padden Creek are vital to the residents of Happy Valley and Indigenous communities. It is ingrained in Indigenous cultures to respect the land and be conscious of damage, according to Free Borsey, a Lummi Nation tribal member.
Prior to restoration, many children in Happy Valley were told not to swim and play in the creek because of the degraded water quality, but they may be able to soon.
Stumps put into the creek at the restoration site known as riparian buffers. These pieces of debris are important for salmon as they break up the stream channels, creating new pools and places for the water to flow. // Will Story
Finding the creek’s future
Alex McLean, the current president of the Happy Valley Neighborhood Association, has lived along Padden Creek for 25 years. He envisioned the yard behind his home that connects to the creek as a place to spend with friends and his dogs.
The first time he saw the space, he was astonished to find a massive wall of garbage bags, three to four feet deep. McLean realized the garbage was coming from many homeowners, who left old bottles and appliances that looked like they were from the 1950s.
“I’ve lived in Happy Valley most of the past 25 years and the daylighting effort has been transformative. It’s a really impressive, sustained, systematic and organized effort to focus on the creek and improve it,” McLean said. “It’s historic.”
McLean wrote a letter of support for the project in 2019 with one criticism: the lack of trails. To connect the broader population to the natural beauty of the city, he suggests trail connections to the massive expanse of urban trails.
“The way you get people out of cars is to make really attractive alternatives,” McLean said. “Nobody wants to walk on a sidewalk next to a state highway that is exposed to the sun and rain. Instead, they could be in a nice, quiet forest and experience nature. This could be a regular commute for people.”
A dam at the mouth of Padden Creek is used to regulate the water flow, Feb. 2. // Will Story
However, a trail may not be viable within the newly restored area. Throughout the process, the surrounding wetlands are more sensitive than previously thought, said Analiese Burns, the habitat and restoration manager for the City of Bellingham.
For the Lummi Nation and Nooksack Tribe, Sis’lit-chum and all water bodies that contain salmon are important economically, spiritually and socially.
“When I acknowledge the land, I am bringing light to issues that Indigenous people in the area have faced, but at the same time, acknowledging the land itself for everything that it provides for us,” said Borsey. “I’m acknowledging it as a being because that’s exactly what it is.”
Living among the salmon
Salmon have been the center of many projects in the Pacific Northwest. A 1993 study at Oxford University calls salmon a keystone species, necessary for reestablishing and sustaining ecosystem structure, function and diversity in restoration projects.
Without salmon, local ecosystems would dramatically decline in health.They carry nutrients through ecosystems, influence riparian structure and are important to the life histories of nearby communities, according to a 2006 study by the University of Washington.
Before officially breaking ground on the restoration project, stakeholders encouraged city officials to repair the major fish passage barrier downstream, which was stopping coho salmon from reaching key spawning and rearing habitat.
Now, two additional miles have been added back to the salmon habitat, with more on the way.
The restoration of salmon populations and their ecosystem stem from education and activism in the community. Scherrer has taken to putting education and restoration together through her career. She is currently involved in the salmon education program with local K-12 students, spreading knowledge to future generations.
“Salmon in our backyard is an awesome idea,” said Scherrer. “We can use it as a living laboratory and we can teach people about everything from biology, science, to culture, to what ecosystem and habitat mean.”
A grey view of Lake Padden, Feb. 2. The lake is currently facing an algae bloom, tinting the water blue and green. // Will Story
Connor Garrod is a senior studying freshwater and terrestrial ecology. She is passionate about restoration work and how it affects the relationship between people and the natural world.
Will Story is a visual journalism student who uses photography to explore the world and wants to share ideas through the lens of a camera.