Upper Cherry Creek Monitoring Project, Washington Department of Natural Resources

This macroinvertebrate monitoring effort is part of a larger grant-funded project led by Washington DNR's Watershed Resilience Program to assess water quality, habitat, fish use, and opportunities for process-based riparian and instream restoration along 3 miles of upper Cherry Creek. This work will also benefit broader salmon recovery efforts at DNR, as it will help to develop a framework to assess limiting factors to anadromous and resident salmonids and identify restoration strategies for streams within DNR-managed lands. DNR will conduct a habitat assessment to determine the extent of habitat degradation and monitor biotic and abiotic factors indicative of habitat quality including in-stream temperature, macroinvertebrate densities, juvenile salmonid abundance, spawning ground surveys, species presence, and water quality using the best-available science. The data collected through this project will help fill existing gaps on fish use, evaluate a suite of potential restoration actions, and identify specific sites for riparian and instream habitat projects at upper Cherry Creek.

This project is funded in part by the Snoqualmie Cooperative Watershed Management Grant Program, which funds projects through the King County Flood Control District.

Please contact Watershed Resilience Specialist Nick Braun at nick.braun@dnr.wa.gov with any questions, or see https://dnr.wa.gov/aquatics/watershed-resilience-program for more information on the Watershed Resilience Program.