On Friday, July 28, there were hundreds of juvenile salmon clustered in a pool, in clear water surrounded by a bank of fresh woody debris. Not 100 yards away, a spinning drum processed sediment to extract gold.
This land is managed by a mining company, but it’s also the site of a major stream restoration project. Thousands of salmon are returning to this stream in Hope, more than 100 years after aggressive gold mining affected the path of the river. The project to restore Resurrection Creek has brought together a coalition of stakeholders, including the present-day mining company that occupies the site.
The restoration of Resurrection Creek began in the early 2000s. The goal was to correct habitat damage caused by historic mining.
More than 100 years ago, heavy mining activity in the gold rush town affected the stream pattern, turning it from a meandering creek to a straight ditch. Jim Roberts is vice president of Hope Mining Company, and he said hydraulic mining in the early 1900s fundamentally changed the waterway.
“So a very fast, deep river was great for mining. And the effect of that in this corridor, and the reason the Forest Service is here, is that it took this really nice, normally formed river with a lot of sinuosity and turned it into a rain gutter,” he said. “So that’s all great and fine for mining, but it’s really horrible for habitat.”
Two decades ago, the U.S. Forest Service took an interest in restoring the creek to a viable salmon watershed. Around 2005, people like project lead Brian Bair started work restoring a one-mile stretch of the river, outside of the mining company lands.
“The Chugach [National Forest] had identified an area where there was high fish productivity, so the fish were really happy with it,” Bair said. “So we went up, surveyed it, and then we used that as templates to design the lower area.”
Engineers used that template to redesign the stream’s path with bends, pools and slopes that made it ideal for salmon. After that restoration, the Forest Service reported a dramatic increase in salmon and other wildlife.
Then, the project moved on to phase two — restoring another two-mile leg that goes right through active mining claims. Collaboration between the mining company and Forest Service became critical in the progress of the project.
Hope Mining Company is a 2,200-acre mining leasing company, founded in the 1890s. The company pays royalties to the Bureau of Land Management and leases mining sites to individual gold miners. Owner Al Johnson bought the land on a whim, site unseen.
“At the time I was a business agent with the hotel and restaurant union,” Johnson said. “So I walk into one of my restaurants and the owner says, come in, would you like a coffee. So I walk in, sit down and she says, ‘Would you like to buy a gold mine?’ And I said, ‘What? What do I know from a gold mine?’”
The relationship between Hope Mining Company and the Forest Service was tense at first. Vice President Roberts said a turning point in that collaboration came when the two agreed on putting a bridge over the creek that could be used by both contractors and the miners.
“That allows us access to the other side of the river, which was very difficult before. It required driving through the river, which obviously isn’t great for river habitat and fish, and made it patently inaccessible most of the year,” Roberts said.
Now, after almost 20 years of fundraising and planning, the second phase is underway.
Corinne Marzoullo has been the engineer on the project. She said the creek has been redesigned to provide what salmon need to thrive — resting pools and hiding spots as they journey upriver.
“We’ve designed the meander bends to incorporate different channel features like riffles, pools and glides, because the river was just one straight riffle,” she said. The pools provide restings spots, the pools provide spawning locations.”
Marzoullo says different features are designed to cater to different salmon species, all of which inhabit this river.
“We’ve also incorporated woody debris and our large wood structures into the channel, so that provides bank stabilization, but also provides coverage from the bears that are cruising on through here,” she said.
Brian Bair said there was a sixfold impact on salmon populations, affecting all five species after phase one. So far, there have been thousands of fish in the stream following parts of phase two. Long-term monitoring will be necessary to see the eventual, total impacts on salmon numbers here.
Current mining activities along the restored corridor will have to wrap up in August. After the restoration is complete, mining will be allowed, but must meet high standards that involve returning the creek to its post-restoration state, and working closely with regulatory agencies.
The National Forest Foundation, the nonprofit partner of the Forest Service, helped leverage millions in funding for the project, from groups like NOAA and ConocoPhillips. The foundation raised $7.5 million for the project, which went toward the engineering and contracting work and will fund revegetation in the coming years.
Money for the project also comes from Trout Unlimited. Marian Giannulis is a spokesperson for the national fish conservation nonprofit. She said the group was hesitant to contribute to the project at first because of the active mining in the area.
“We didn’t get actively involved until we had assurance that this restoration corridor would not be mined again,” she said. “We had some reservations, we didn’t want to make the investments necessary to get a project of this scale off the ground until we knew that the work that would happen here would have lasting benefits to the local ecosystems in perpetuity.”
Trout Unlimited signed on after receiving a large private donation from Kinross Alaska, a gold mining company that Giannulis said shared an interest in restoring abandoned mining sites.
On Friday, there are so many salmon in the stream they splash out of the water trying to get around each other. But it isn’t just about the salmon. Giannulis said the whole ecosystem is affected, including moose and plant life. Just yesterday, she said, a young bear went fishing in one of those new pools.
