Pierce County city saves 50 acres of salmon habitat downtown. You’ll be able to explore it

Not many cities have a 50-acre forest downtown.

Gig Harbor, private landowners and conservationists sealed the deal recently to permanently save the final 11.41-acre parcel in such a forest from development, according to a press release. The sale was finalized Aug. 28.

The conserved area will allow the city to begin building public trails and conserve critical fish habitat. The motion to authorize the mayor to move forward with the acquisition was unanimously approved by city council at their July 22 meeting.

The conservation of a wildlife corridor of this size downtown is “an incredible thing you don’t really see a lot,” Ali Querin, conservation project manager for the nonprofit land trust Great Peninsula Conservancy who took the lead on applying for grant funding and negotiating the sale, said.

Named the txʷaalqəł Conservation Area after the main village site of the sxʷəbabč band of the Puyallup Tribe that first existed there, the area spans just over 50 acres mostly between the Cushman Trail and Harborview Drive, with a section that extends beyond Harborview toward Burnham Drive. The area also includes about 2,300 feet of North Creek, also known as Donkey Creek, according to the city’s website .

A video teaching the correct pronunciation of the village name is available online from the Puyallup Tribe.

The city has acquired the full property, which is also called the North Creek Salmon Heritage Site, piece-by-piece in four phases since 2021. Partners in the project included the Puyallup Tribe , Great Peninsula Conservancy and the Gig Harbor & Key Peninsula Land Fund , which became a volunteer committee of GPC in early August.

The recent 11.41-acre purchase was the fourth and final phase of the project.

Private owners Walter and Carolyn Brooks chose to sell the Phase IV parcel after the city and its partners identified the parcel as a natural addition to the adjacent conservation area and invited the couple to consider protecting it from the risk of future development.

“They agreed this would be a wonderful use of this property that they’ve taken care of so well,” Querin said.

With the addition of the full txʷaalqəł Conservation Area, Gig Harbor now has 120 acres of natural and conservation area, according to the press release about the acquisition. The city’s total area is 3,924 acres.

A permanent greenspace

Both the creek and the surrounding streamside forest provide critical habitat to a variety of fish species, according to a survey done by Wild Fish Conservancy Northwest in 2018. One reason is the wood that falls into the stream.

“The wood traps sediment that the fish spawn in and . . . creates log jams that are important for fish habitat, (which) we lose when we have a lot of development in a watershed when houses or businesses or farms are constructed too close to streams,” Jamie Glasgow, WFC director of science and research, said.

Other benefits of a healthy streamside or riparian forest include shade, which keeps the water cool; less runoff from nearby surfaces with pollutants; less erosion because plant roots stabilize the stream bank; and leaf litter and other vegetation that falls into the stream and feeds the fish, according to Glasgow.

Wild Fish Conservancy and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have documented coho salmon, coastal cutthroat trout, chum salmon and Puget Sound steelhead trout in North Creek, according to a WFC letter of support for Phase I.

While the stream provides favorable conditions for fish, Glasgow told The News Tribune via email there aren’t as many as would have been there historically. Protecting North Creek is important to give salmon a healthy watershed to return to, but that alone won’t increase salmon populations, he wrote.

“We need the political will to also reform how, where, and when we fish; and how, where, and when we use hatcheries,” he wrote. “To date, that will has been insufficient or absent.”

Puget Sound steelhead trout are considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries website.

Like other members of the trout and salmon family, their populations have declined because of factors including habitat loss, fisheries that catch them intentionally or unintentionally and negative genetic and ecological impacts from hatchery fish, Glasgow told The News Tribune via email. Climate change is also affecting water temperatures and the amount of water flowing in streams.

“For context, we have less than 5% of the abundance of Puget Sound steelhead that we had in the early 1900s,” Glasgow told The News Tribune via email.

Public trails on the way

The North Creek Salmon Heritage Site will be fully owned and managed by the city of Gig Harbor, according to Jennifer Haro, city parks manager.

The city also shares stewardship with Pierce County for the parcels acquired in Phases I, II and IV. For Phase III, the city has a conservation easement with Great Peninsula Conservancy, she said. A conservation easement is a legal agreement between a landowner and a land trust or government agency that permanently limits how the land can be used so as to conserve it.

Gig Harbor plans to build trails through the area, including one connecting the Cushman Trail and downtown Gig Harbor. The city is in the process of budgeting funds for the design and permitting of this trail, and it will probably not be open until at least the end of 2026, according to Haro. The hope is that there will be at least one trail in the conservation area open by early next year.

This trail won’t be paved and the city isn’t able to meet full Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards on it because of the slope, but “it will be wide and easy to walk” and the city is looking at some kind of crushed gravel option, Haro said. The other trails in the area will be dirt-surfaced.

There is also an existing trail nicknamed the “Lushootseed Loop” in Phase II of the property, which is close to the Cushman Trail but not currently connected. The trail is largely overgrown and not easily visible from Harborview Drive, according to the city’s conservation management plan for Phases I and II. The trail has a bridge over North Creek that may not be sound for pedestrians. The city’s plan proposes inspecting and improving the bridge before formally reopening it to the public.

In general, people will be able to do “passive recreation” activities in the conservation area, Haro said. That includes hiking, walking and viewing nature and excludes riding horses or biking.

The Puyallup Tribe formed an intergovernmental agreement with the city in May 2023 that recognized their $50,000 contribution to the purchase of Phase I, according to the city’s conservation management plan. Haro said the tribe will be allowed to gather native plants in the area, and the city plans to work with them to put up signage about the history of the area and potentially the names of native plants in their language.

Other necessary structures the city is allowed to put in are benches, boardwalks and bridges as needed. The city can remove dangerous trees, do some invasive plant removal, maintain the trails and potentially plant new trees for a new understory where appropriate, according to Haro.

How much did this cost the city of Gig Harbor?

No money from the city’s general fund was used for the purchase of Phase IV, Gig Harbor Mayor Tracie Markley said in the Great Peninsula Conservancy press release.

The sale price of the property was $675,000 for the Phase IV parcel, plus additional taxes and fees which amounted to an additional $6,234. The property was paid for with a $612,817 grant from the Pierce County Conservation Futures Program, about $49,000 from the Gig Harbor & Key Peninsula Land Fund and about $14,500 from three smaller grants, she told The News Tribune via email.

The city acquired the other phases of the conservation area in a similar fashion, with grants and donations, so that the entire land acquisition had no impact to the city’s budget except for “some staff time and the small cost for an environmental report,” according to the city’s website . Haro provided the full breakdown for the costs of the other three phases as follows:

• Phase I: The city paid $500,000, including $50,000 from the Puyallup Tribe, $435,750 reimbursed from the Pierce County Conservation Futures Program and local funds
• Phase II: The city paid $4.2 million, including $601,678 from Pierce County Conservation Futures and local funds
• Phase III: The city paid $1 million, including $50,000 from the Gig Harbor & Key Peninsula Land Fund and local funds

Contributors of local funds included The Russell Family Foundation, The Hugh and Jane Ferguson Foundation, Gig Harbor Rotary and the KGI Watershed Council.

The News Tribune reached out to each Gig Harbor council member to ask how each member weighed land conservation against the revenue development brings, as well as the city’s budget situation and the need for more housing.

One of the parcels that was going to be targeted for development was Phase III, a 5.15-acre property where 18 homes were going to be built.

Council member Jeni Woock said these factors were not part of her decision to support the acquisition because they didn’t align with what the citizens of Gig Harbor wanted.

“They wanted to conserve this property, and I think that’s more important than any development that (would) come from this property,” Woock said.

The other council members did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The city doesn’t have plans for future acquisitions of conservation area, though they’re open to the possibility, Haro said. There is no city budget set aside for acquisitions at this time.