Gilberton Creek Project - 4/28/10

Many Inquiries Re the Gilberton Creek Project.  The Illahee Community Club was asked to write a letter of endorsement of the Gilberton acquisition project, which we hope will come through for them.

Illahee Community Club

PO Box 2357

Bremerton, WA  98310

April 27, 2010

Michael Yadrick

Great Peninsula Conservancy

3721 Kitsap Way, Suite 5

Bremerton, WA  98312

SUBJECT:  Riparian Protection Application –Gilberton Creek Wildlife Corridor Acquisition

On behalf of the Illahee Community Club, a not-for-profit corporation organized for area preservation and restoration, we would like to express our strong support for Gilberton Creek Wildlife Corridor Acquisition. Protection of the Gilberton Creek Wildlife Corridor and especially Grahn Cove will be an important step in preserving riparian and critical nearshore habitat on East Kitsap County’s Puget Sound shoreline. The 8-acre Grahn Cove parcel includes a saltwater lagoon (pocket estuary), saltwater marsh, sand spit, extensive tidelands and shoreline, lower reaches of Gilberton Creek, and a small apple orchard.  The project has significant natural habitat and scenic values, potential for low-impact recreation, and historic interest for the community.

This project is important to the Illahee Community specifically because:

• The headwaters for Gilberton Creek are in the Illahee Community where a good portion of the watershed is situated.
• The culvert that gave out on December 3, 2007 and resulting in the devastation of the Gilberton Creek riparian corridor also was within the Illahee Community boundary.
• The Gilberton Community, like the Illahee Community, finds itself with some unique natural features, that are better used by wildlife than for development.
• The Illahee Community has established wildlife corridors that connect the Cheney Estates with Illahee State Park, and Illahee State Park with the Illahee Preserve.  With your establishing another wildlife area and corridor north of the Illahee Preserve, there is a logical connectedness between all these wildlife areas so that wildlife islands are not created.
• Our shoreline area connects with your shoreline area and scientists are continuing to understand the importance of the nearshore areas for the health of Puget Sound, and so we support the preservation of the critical nearshore habitat in the area.

Through fee simple acquisition, donation of a conservation easement, and land donation, the project will create a 15-acre, half-mile long wildlife corridor from existing Conservancy land to the Puget Sound shoreline. Because of the terrain between the Illahee Preserve and the acquisition area, we would suggest there may be a secondary wildlife between the Conservancy land and the Illahee Preserve.

Also, the conservation of Grahn Cove and adjoining parcels will permanently protect a unique natural area along a highly impacted shoreline.   Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has designated pocket estuaries like Grahn Cove as priority habitat for conservation.  While individually small, together they play a huge role in the health of Puget Sound salmon and forage fish populations.

Historically, Grahn Cove was a traditional clamming and encampment site for the Suquamish People, as well as a popular way point on the Mosquito Fleet ferry system. Without protection, the estuary is threatened by development because it is desirable waterfront property.  Conservation of this unique property will protect critical shoreline habitat, while providing opportunities for limited public access by small boat, reflecting traditional use of the site.

The Great Peninsula Conservancy (GPC) has a long history and solid reputation for preserving and stewarding important natural habitats across Kitsap, Mason, and west Pierce counties.  The Illahee Community Club is pleased to be a partner with GPC in this conservation project.  We pledge our endorsement and support as a neighbor and partner of preserving and protecting our natural features and specifically for the Gilberton Creek project acquisitions.

Sincerely,

Barney Bernhard, President

Additional Gilberton Creek Information.  Attached is a Gilberton Corridor Map that will explain much of the project as well as the attached basics below.

 The basics of the "Gilberton Creek Wildlife Corridor Acquisition" project are:

Great Peninsula Conservancy will permanently protect a half-mile long Gilberton Creek Wildlife Corridor linking 4 acres of existing Conservancy lands on the lower reaches of Gilberton Creek with a small pocket estuary on Puget Sound's Port Orchard Bay, known as Grahn Cove.  The objectives of the project are to conserve important natural habitat while providing for low-impact public use by small boats as part of the Cascadia Marine Trail.  The current fee-title acquisition will add approximately 8 acres of tidelands, shoreline, lagoon, creek, and upland to the corridor. Complementing the fee acquisition, GPC will also accept approximately 4 acres of donated conservation easement and donated land along lower Gilberton Creek, which will bring the total protected area to approximately 15 acres.  The site has special natural habitat and scenic values, potential for low-impact recreation, and historic interest for the community. Please see the attached draft project map.

Grahn Cove was a popular summer campsite for Native Americans and a way point on the Mosquito Fleet Ferry operated by the Grahn family during the first half of the 20^th century.  Descendants of the Grahn family that homesteaded the property in 1898 are working with Great Peninsula Conservancy to permanently protect this unique natural area.  The Grahn Cove parcel alone has: (1) approximately 4 acres of shoreline, stream, cove, and upland; (2) approximately 4 acres of tidelands to extreme low tide; (3) 370 feet of natural Puget Sound shoreline as measured straight across the parcel; (4) approximately 200 feet on both sides of Gilberton Creek as it passes through a flat-bottomed, steep ravine with mature forest at the top; and (5) an old apple orchard with 125 feet of no-bank shoreline suitable for public access by small boat.

The project encompasses a beautiful natural area where freshwater from Gilberton Creek meets saltwater at Grahn Cove on Port Orchard Bay. Grahn Cove has particularly high conservation value as a small sub-estuary on West Puget Sound, providing nearshore estuarine habitat for a variety of fish, birds, and other wildlife. Nearly 26% of the pocket estuaries identified around Puget Sound are stressed by urbanization. Of the 65 pocket estuaries in East Kitsap County (link to the Kitsap pocket estuary map), the Puget Sound Partnership characterizes only 20 as "properly functioning." Until December 3, 2007, Grahn Cove would have fit in this category.  Tragically, a culvert under Illahee Road, one mile upstream from the mouth, washed out in a major storm event at that time.  The floodwaters carved a 35 foot high gap in Illahee Road and filled the  estuary with debris and sediment. Plans for restoring the cove should be finalized in the next few weeks and restoration is anticipated to occur during the summer of 2010.

 Conservation of Grahn Cove is important because the sheltered Port Orchard Bay marine passage between Bainbridge Island and mainland Kitsap County is used during a critical time in the development of juvenile salmon as well as many important forage fish, including sand lance, surf smelt, sculpins, and herring.  Grahn Cove and beach is a documented spawning ground for both Pacific herring and sand lance, which are important forage fish for seabirds, marine mammals as well as juvenile and adult salmon.  Pacific herring is a federal species of concern and a state candidate species. Sand lance is on WDFW's priority species list.

Similarly, intertidal 'embayments and pocket beaches' like Grahn Cove are a WDFW priority habitat.  Juvenile salmon utilize these pocket estuaries at a critical stage of their life cycle for feeding and refuge.   Young salmon travel from pocket estuary to pocket estuary by traveling along a low salinity wedge of water along the shoreline.  Freshwater creeks such as Gilberton Creek play an important role in maintaining this low salinity shoreline zone. Grahn Cove provides an important link between Illahee Creek to the south and Steele Creek to the north.  Importantly, a variety of birds also use the site including greater yellow leg, dunlin, American wigeon, bufflehead, Barrow's goldeneye, cormorants, kingfisher, bald eagle, and pileated woodpecker. Additionally, the no bank shoreline and the tidelands that surround the lagoon contain shellfish beds for little neck clam, butter clam, cockerel and geoduck.

Jim Aho