South Fork Nooksack Floodplain
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The South Fork Nooksack Floodplain flows from tributaries in the Mt. Baker/Snoqualmie National Forest to the confluence of the North and South forks just upstream of the City of Deming. The town of Acme on State Route 9 is the largest community in the floodplain.
- The South Fork Spring Chinook run is critically imperiled and floodplain habitat restoration is a focus of whatcom county recovery efforts.
- The South Fork is not glacially fed, and so low summer flow and high stream temperature affects spring chinook which hold in the river until fall spawning.
- Maudlin & Coe (2011) describes the effectiveness of 11 project to install engineered log jams in the South Fork floodplain to increase wood formation of pools.
- The following workgroups are most active on the South Fork
- Whatcom County Public Works
- Nooksack Tribe
- Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association
- Whatcom Conservation District
- Whatcom Land Trust
- Nooksack Recovery Team - which serves as a coordinating body
- The Habitat Work Schedule identifies 14 completed salmon recovery actions on the South Fork (Link to map)
- A natural gas pipeline and an active railroad run north to south through the floodplain constraining restoration efforts.
- NOAA provides real time flow at Saxon Bridge
- Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association and Whatcom Land Trust have led a series of actions to restore The Catalyst Site where Landingstrip Creek Watershed enters the Nooksack downstream of the Hutchinson Reach Restoration.
Restoration
- Larson's Reach Floodplain Restoration - An initial installation of engineered log jams is being followed by a second installation, led by the Lummi Nation.
