Watershed Council

The Bainbridge Island Watershed Council works on projects and actions that protect and improve the condition of the island's watersheds, shorelines, and related wildlife habitats through volunteer stewardship, educational outreach, and advising the city government on key issues.

PLEASE NOTE: when the watershed council moved their page to this website, an individual or group took the webpage name we used to use, biwatershedcouncil. That website is NOT our website any more. We do not know who this group is, but if you do, please let us know, because that person has not responded to our request to make it clear that they are not the same entity.

Looking Back at 2018

• We were an organizing partner on the 2018 Bainbridge Island Beach Cleanup: over 400 Islanders participated in this event, one of Ocean Conservancy's many Global International Coastal Cleanup efforts
• We were an Organizing Partner for Bainbridge Island's Earth Month 2018, a celebration of trees and the environment with events all month long
• BIWC co-hosted with Bainbridge Beach Naturalists a talk about salmon net pens and risks to the Puget Sound Ecosystem by Kurt Beardslee, Executive Director of Wild Fish Conservancy
• We worked with COBI and the Bainbridge Island Historical Museum to create an updated interpretive sign for Ravine creek, and we expect to finish the sign Spring 2019
• We sent our Murden Cove Watershed Sign out visiting: this interactive sign that teaches about watershed resources and stewardship lives at Sakai Intermediate School during the school year, but paid a visit to the Grand Forest East for the summer so that the public could engage with it
• In partnership with the Bainbridge Island Land Trust, COBI, the Wild Fish Conservancy, and others, we completed the Springbrook Creek Watershed Assessment, a comprehensive assessment of the land use, water quality, and barriers and opportunities for stream protection and restoration. The full report for this assessment is pending and should be available soon!
• Completed our 14^th annual Annual Salmon Monitoring Program: read more about this program below!
  

Bainbridge Island Salmon Monitoring Program

The Bainbridge Island Watershed Council has completed their 14th annual spawning salmon monitoring season this year. This program monitors four streams on Bainbridge Island – Cooper Creek at the head of Eagle Harbor; two segments of Springbrook Creek; Manzanita Creek; and Murden Creek- for returning adult spawning and juvenile salmon. Volunteers conduct fish and redd (the nests in which salmon lay their eggs) surveys weekly for a two-month period each fall.

The vast majority of the returning adult salmon in the data below are coho. Cooper Creek is the exception as it is a primarily chum salmon-bearing stream as a result of supplementation work the Watershed Council did in partnership with the Suquamish Tribe from 2009 to 2012 to restore salmon to this stream from . This was an extraordinarily low return year, consistent with trends for the West Sound region, and likely was a result of very low water levels making stream habitat difficult to access when fish were ready to return. We documented no adult fish on Murden Creek or Cooper Creek, only egg remnants from what was probably a preyed on spawning adult in Springbrook Creek, and a few returning spawning fish in Manzanita this year. No redds (areas where fish deposit their eggs) were observed this year

MINUTES AND AGENDAS

Our next meeting is scheduled for January 10, 2019, 7 - 8:30pm at the Marge Williams Center. Hope to see you there!

 January 2018 BIWC Minutes

 May 2018 BIWC Minutes

November 2018 BIWC Minutes