Cranberry Creek

Cranberry Creek, a tributary to the Stillaguamish River, is home to endangered steelhead and bull trout. It is also an important salmon spawning stream, but an old, corroding culvert was preventing migrating fish from getting where they needed to go.

A culvert replacement project connected the creek with 100 acres of wetlands and restored fish passage to 6.4 miles of stream in the upper South Fork Stillaguamish basin. The habitat provides ideal spawning sites for returning salmon in the fall and rearing habitat for young salmon. The project replaced a failing 6-by-78-foot corrugated metal culvert with a 20-by-60-foot concrete, bottomless box structure.

The project took place near the gateway to the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, at the Verlot Ranger station, and included upgrading a guardrail to meet new Washington State Department of Transportation standards. The total cost of this project was $1.5 million, $550,000 of which was U.S. Environmental Protection Agency funding via the U.S. Forest Service to undertake recommended actions included in the forests watershed planning process for the Stillaguamish River. Given that Snohomish County has more than 2,000 miles of road to maintain and limited local road revenue sources, any external funding sources are leveraged to implement projects that maintain community infrastructure.

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