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Reminder: Practice Good Firework Housekeeping for Water Quality

Help us keep our rivers, lakes, and streams healthy by practicing good firework housekeeping. Fireworks have heavy metals, perchlorate and other pollutants that can harm people and the environment. The chemicals in fireworks can pollute our rivers, lakes, and streams when fireworks are detonated over waterbodies and when firework waste is not disposed of properly. See our list of good housekeeping tips for this Fourth of July holiday.

Visit the Snohomish County Fire Marshall?s webpage for information on where it is legal and illegal to discharge fireworks and tips to keep safe. If you have questions or would like to report a water pollution concern, please call the Water Quality Complaint Hotline at 425-388-6481 or use the?on-line water pollution reporting system.

Help us keep pollution from fireworks out of our lakes and streams.

Catch More Crab by Preventing Crab Pot Loss

It?s opening weekend for recreational crabbing in Puget Sound! Each year an estimated 12,000 crab pots are lost in Puget Sound, resulting in the capture of an estimated 180,000 Dungeness crab a year with no one to harvest them. The Snohomish County Marine Resources Committee (MRC) and the Northwest Straits Foundation continue to partner to educate crabbers about the problem. NW Straits Foundation has many great tips, instructional videos and other resources to prevent lost crab pots.

MRC members will be at the 10th Street Boat Launch in Everett on the mornings of July 6 and 7, from 6:00 to 10:00 a.m. providing educational materials including free rot cord, bait hooks, and gauges for measuring your catch. The goal is more crab for you, less lost pots for Puget Sound!

Learn tips to keep your crab pot and catch more crab!

SWM's Construction Season is Here

Summer marks the beginning of construction season! Starting in July, you may see SWM staff working with contractors and Road Maintenance crews to build projects that improve drainage, replace failing culverts, and restore fish habitat around the county. Some projects on this summer's list include:

• Maintaining a drainage facility at Smith Island
• Restoring nearly 27 acres of salmon rearing and refuge habitat along the North Fork Stillaguamish River at Chatham Acres?
• Replacing eight culverts with structures that are fish passable
• Rehabilitating one water quality facility, and
• Restoring a drainage facility?s storage capacity.

See a list of SWM's current construction projects here and Habitat Projects here.

A failing culvert on Squire Creek Rd (near Darrington) will be replaced with structures designed to reduce road flooding and improve conditions for fish passage.

CFS Project Tour Highlights Collaboration in Snohomish Watershed

In May, Community Floodplain Solutions (CFS) staff and partners led a tour of several project sites being advanced by CFS in the Snohomish Estuary and Lower Skykomish River. A diverse group of over 40 people attended, including members of the Snohomish County Ag Advisory Board, Sustainable Land Strategy (SLS) partners, and Floodplains by Design staff and leadership from Washington Department of Ecology.

The goal was to showcase reach-scale approaches to integrated floodplain management that balance the needs of fish, farm, and flood interests in our floodplains and estuaries. The tour highlighted growing support for the CFS program since it started six years ago, and how CFS has become a successful collaborative model that other regions are eager to learn from.?

Daryl Williams of the Tulalip Tribes provided an overview of the Tualco Valley Connectivity Project during the CFS project site tour.

SWM's WCC Restoration Crew is Hiring!

If you or someone you know are looking to gain hands-on experience in public service working outdoors on habitat restoration projects, our Surface Water Management (SWM) Washington Conservation Corps (WCC) is currently hiring. Washington Conservation Corps is an AmeriCorps program that supports young adults and military veterans as they jumpstart their careers in the environmental field. Field crew members are hired for an 11-month season and the position starts October 12, 2024.

Learn more about the program and apply: https://ecology.wa.gov/wcc

WCC crews prepare live stakes for planting along a tributary to the Pilchuck River.?

Upcoming Public Events and Workshops