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Land Acquisitions Along the South Fork Nooksack River

Project Manager: Gordon Scott - Conservation Director, Whatcom Land Trust


One of the biggest obstacles to the recovery of salmon runs in the Nooksack watershed is managing land along streams to benefit, or at least not harm, salmon. The Whatcom Land Trust's way of tackling the problem is to acquire and conserve key salmon habitat. Through its many partnerships with landowners and local organizations such as the Lummi Nation, Nooksack Tribe and Whatcom County, and with the help of grants from the Salmon Recovery Funding Board, the Land Trust has preserved over 750 acres covering six miles of riverfront between Acme and Skookum Creek in the South Fork Nooksack sub-basin, commonly referred to as the Acme-Saxon reach.

The Land Trust conserves and protects land in two ways: through the direct purchase of the land and through conservation easements purchased from or donated by local landowners. Both of these methods achieve the goal of protecting the land in perpetuity from development. "Land acquisition is the simplest, fastest and most economical way to aid salmon recovery," Gordon Scott, the Land Trust conservation director explains. "It provides for long-term conservation and reduces the need for government regulatory programs."

"We look for undeveloped areas that serve as the best functioning habitat remaining," Scott says. "It should include good riparian forests with large trees for shade and cover as well as properties with wetlands connected to streams and those with side-channels or off-channel sloughs for rearing." The Acme-Saxon reach is the only remaining section of the lower South Fork that is largely unconfined by levees and bank armoring, and provides critical spawning habitat for a chinook run that is genetically unique from other chinook in the Puget Sound region, making the land acquisitions of the Whatcom Land Trust important on a regional as well as local level.

The protection of lands along the South Fork began with a conservation easement on Nesset Farm in 1989. Whatcom County Parks & Recreation later purchased the land for use as a county park. Additional acquisitions included:


1999

• The Craver property: Donation to Land Trust

• Overby Farmstead: Conservation easement acquired; purchased timber rights with Whatcom County funding
• Curtis and Roos tracts: Purchase of 155 acres of habitat between Acme and Saxon

• Hutchinson Creek Wetland Preserve: Purchased by Land Trust

• Foxglove: 30-acre tract of forested wetland, adjacent to the Roos property, purchased with a Salmon Recovery Funding Board grant
• East Acme Farm: Donation of 500-foot wide riparian conservation easement by Whatcom County Parks

• Port Blakely Tree Farms LLC: purchased 76 acres of riverfront forest

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