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Spring Valley Ranch Project

Description of the Spring Valley Ranch Project, a preservation and restoration project sponsored by the Washington Department of Transportation

The Spring Valley Ranch site is considered the single most important stretch of Hylebos Creek to preserve and restore. Though degraded from decades of use as a hobby farm, the site's floodplain habitat and ample spawning gravel provides a unique opportunity to restore critical Chinook, coho and chum spawning habitat.

Thanks to a groundbreaking partnership between the Friends, the Washington Department of Transportation and the city of Federal Way, the 20-acre wetland and stream habitat was preserved in 2004 and is being restored during the summer of 2007.

The Friends and the city of Federal Way had long sought to find a way to restore the critical spawning habitat on the formerly private land. When the Friends learned of the WSDOT's need for a large wetland mitigation site, they introduced the agency to the site, which met their mitigation needs.

The Department of Transportation purchased the 20-acre site for $1.8 million in 2004 and worked with the Friends, Federal Way, the Puyallup Indian Tribe and the Washington Department of Fish and wildlife to design the restoration project.

Beginning in January 2007, restoration began with a Friends' volunteer-led effort that planted 2,000 trees and shrubs along the site's eastern boundary.

Then, in July 2007, Mid-Mountain Construction began the major part of the project, restoring 2,000 feet of stream channel, removing fill dirt and restoring wetlands and planting more than 50,000 native trees and shrubs.

Along the way, a new stream channel will be built with a new road crossing that will greatly reduce the threat of flooding here. The project is also being coordinated with the city of Federal Way, which along with supporting the stream restoration, is funding the new bridge.

Major construction will be finished in September 2007. Planting will follow in the fall and winter. Project monitoring, maintenance and supplemental planting will continue through 2017.

The Friends awarded the Washington Department of Transportation the 2005 Innovation in Conservation Award for the Spring Valley Restoration Project.

Spring Valley Ranch Project: Before and After

WSDOT Spring Valley Ranch Website

Friends' Spring Valley Photos