Duck Creek Watershed

1900's

2000's

Principal Investigator:
K.V. Koski
(907) 789-6024
K.Koski@noaa.gov


Background

Duck Creek is a small anadromous fish stream located in the Mendenhall Valley, the most populated residential area of Juneau, Alaska. Duck Creek is currently listed by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation as impaired because of urban runoff, poor water quality, and degraded habitat. Duck Creek has been an important salmon stream, providing salmon for commercial, sport and subsistence fisheries, as well as feed for the early fur farms. Chum salmon, which once numbered 10,000 are now extinct, and the coho salmon and cutthroat trout abundance has been reduced significantly. Despite its impairment, the watershed still provides the community with beneficial and often essential resources, such as drainage and flood control, fish and wildlife habitat, opportunities for aquatic education, and recreation. Duck Creek provides important overwintering habitat for juvenile coho salmon which migrate into the stream each fall from other streams. This wintering population produces about 2,000-4,000 smolts each spring that contribute to the annual adult coho harvest in the Juneau area.


Management Approach

In 1993 the Duck Creek Advisory Group (DCAG) was organized to coordinate activities for planning and implementing a program to restore water quality and anadromous fish habitat. DCAG is comprised of over 25 organizations and partners including the City and Borough of Juneau, State and Federal agencies, private businesses, conservation organizations, and individual homeowners. The Group provides education to the community, collects field data, holds monthly meetings, publishes a newsletter, and recently drafted the Duck Creek Watershed Management Plan. Science is integrated into a watershed approach to develop baselines of current conditions and to formulate restoration strategies. The baselines will allow for future evaluation of the Plan's effectiveness. Duck Creek will serve as a regional demonstration site for developing new restoration technology. The DCAG has evolved into a larger more encompassing citizens group, the Mendenhall Watershed Partnership, organized in 1998 to work toward a more healthier and viable Mendenhall watershed.

The Duck Creek Plan emphasizes needed Enforcement, Management, and Restoration to control urban runoff and to develop better land-use practices in order to achieve numerous potential benefits to the community. The restoration projects that have been implemented have improved Duck Creek and the innovative partnerships have resulted in a cost-savings to the community. These projects include replacement of inadequate culverts with bridges and bottomless arches, installation of snow fences, revegetation of streambanks and riparian areas, removal of sediment in spawning areas, channel reconfiguration, and creation of stormwater treatment wetlands.


Awards

In 1999, the Duck Creek Advisory Group was awarded Coastal America's National Partnership Award for its success in developing cooperative partnership programs in restoring important coastal resources. The endorsement by Coastal America helped in securing a 206 grant from the Alaska District Army Corps of Engineers for restoring Duck Creek has proposed in the Plan. In addition, Duck Creek has been selected as a National Showcase Watershed for demonstrating urban stream corridor restoration. The Showcase program is a key part of the Clean Water Action Plan announced in 1998. In May 1999, The Federal Interagency Stream Restoration Working Group, representing 15 Federal agencies, selected Duck Creek as one of 12 watersheds in the nation to be showcased for stream corridor restoration activities.

Activities in each of the 12 watersheds will be nationally publicized to increase public awareness and promote the use of the concepts outlined in the Working Group publication (October 1998) "Stream Corridor Restoration:  Principles, Processes, and Practices". K Koski and Mitch Lorenz have contributed content for an internet site set up by the Working Group.

EPA Showcase and Duck Creek

Coastal America and Duck Creek

The "Duck Creek Watershed Management Plan" will also be nationally publicized as part of the Clean Water Action Plan.

Clean Water Action Plan Success Stories Report

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