Dripping water creek, northeast Bainbridge Island
If you’ve driven along Sunrise Drive heading towards Fay Bainbridge Park, you may have briefly noticed a split rail fence along the east side of the road. It is less likely, unless Sunrise is on your walking route, that you’ve noticed that on the other side of that fence, and a fair few feet down, is a small creek meandering along underneath cedar and salmonberry.
This is Dripping Water Creek; a small stream that originates north of Madison Ave, well to the west. West of here, the creek runs through Quitslund Preserve, 20 acres of conserved forest located between Madison and Sunrise drives that was donated to the Bainbridge Island Land Trust in 2020.
Until about ten years ago, dripping water creek ran under Sunrise Drive in a failing and undersized culvert, which caused street flooding during high rain events (you can see pictures of the old culvert on Wild Fish Conservancy’s Stream Typing web platform. The city replaced this infrastructure with a wide box culvert in 2014, allowing the stream to move more freely under the road and improving what was formerly a fish passage barrier and flooding risk. Cutthroat trout have been observed in this stream, and likely migrate towards the sound as this small stream shrinks in the summer, returning with the rains. Cutthroat are a remarkable species with a huge diversity of life history strategies that can include moving between salt, brackish and fresh water, a super useful adaptation for our smaller and seasonal streams.
Another thing to notice about Dripping Water creek at this intersection with Sunrise Drive is how fully covered it is by overhanging riparian, or streamside, vegetation. Riparian vegetation plays several roles in supporting health streams: vegetation over the stream reduces sunlight hitting the water, maintaining cool stream temperatures essential for fish and aquatic invertebrates; leaf litter and insects that fall in to the stream from overhanging vegetation supports the stream’s food web; and the roots of riparian vegetation stabilizes stream banks, keeping them from eroding in high water events. Maintaining and enhancing native plant cover for our Island streams is one of the most important things we can do to protect their quality and function.
So next time you’re on Sunrise Drive, take a slow roll or stroll by the split rail fence, and admire one of our Island’s beautiful smaller streams as it winds its way towards the Sound, supporting vegetation and wildlife along its way.