Stillwaters Environmental Center, Kitsap County, the Army Corps of Engineers and others are teaming up to restore and preserve the Carpenter Creek/Appletree Cove Estuary in Kingston. This pristine and ecologically valuable ecosystem is known to most residents as “the slough.”

The estuary will be opened up to better tidal exchange next summer when the narrow culvert on South Kingston Road is replaced with a bridge. In subsequent years, the even smaller culvert under West Kingston Road will also be replaced with a bridge.

Other restoration activity will occur this month. With a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, “Large Woody Debris” (LWD) will be placed in the brackish high salt marsh of the estuary system, located to the north of West Kingston Road. This is an exciting improvement for the marsh!

LWD is a term for large logs or root wads that are found in water bodies. Ideally, they appear because trees alongside the water fall or are blown over into the water. LWD is a boon to streams and marshes because it offers homes for all sorts of wildlife, but particularly salmon juveniles and spawning salmon. The hunks of trees or roots create pools and provide shade.

LWD also provides decaying matter as food for bugs, which become food for fish, birds and other wildlife. It’s an important part of the natural ecosystem, and just one of the great benefits from dead or dying trees.

This month, Stillwaters will assist the ecosystem by placing logs and root wads in the marsh and lower stream, using a helicopter to lower them in. This is a long-awaited part of the lower Carpenter Creek restoration plan, recommended in several studies of the watershed.

Following placement of the LWD, there will be volunteer work parties for eradication of invasive non-native plants threatening the health of the marsh. The removal of non-natives will improve the fish and wildlife habitat of the watershed as a whole, particularly improving the salmon habitat in the high salt marsh as its riparian corridor is improved.

Volunteers are welcome to join in the weed-whacking crew. Contact Kari Golden at Stillwaters, (360) 297-2876.