As the Washington State Department of Transportation constructs a fish passage along the Mount Baker Highway, detours and traffic have thrown a wrench in normal life in eastern Whatcom County.
Despite the inconvenience and even safety concerns associated with the construction, the project is necessary to regain 3 miles of fish habitat and increase water quality.
Construction has resulted in a detour path along Hannegan Road and East Smith Road that takes upwards of 20 minutes to navigate with the accumulation of traffic.
With more vehicles using the detour, reports of collisions in the past two months on East Smith Road have gone up by 50% as compared to 2022, What-Comm 911 Deputy Director Alysn Everbeck said in an email. Reports of collisions on Hannegan, meanwhile, have gone up by 88%.
Among those experiencing the longer commute time is the Mount Baker School District — specifically Harmony Elementary School — where transportation schedules have changed to accommodate traffic along the detour route.
“The biggest impact as far as [scheduling] goes was actually the backups that were created,” said Nick Perigo, director of human resources and operations at Mount Baker School District.
The school district was prepared for the detour but didn’t anticipate the amount of traffic it would create.
A couple of school buses and three motor-pool vehicles that take students between school districts have felt the impact of the traffic, sometimes getting to school and back home a couple of minutes late. The changes for bus schedules and routes will remain for the beginning of the 2023–24 school year.
“It’s just been more of a nuisance, I’d say,” Perigo said. “Not a huge game changer for us.”
While the construction of the fish passage will continue into the winter, the highway is on track to re-open this fall.
The existing highway includes a culvert — a small concrete tunnel — that allows the water of Squalicum Creek to pass through it. However, culverts often limit the ability of fish to move from one end to the other.
When the construction finishes, the highway will instead route across a 150-foot, single-span bridge that will allow native salmon and trout species to migrate along the creek.
“The No. 1 goal is to make this crossing a fish-passable structure,” said Melissa Ambler, the project engineer. “The reason we do that is to encourage the fish to come back through these waterways so they can get upstream and spawn.”
Squalicum Creek, a tributary of Bellingham Bay, is the largest watershed in Bellingham. While the creek was historically full of fish, salmon and trout stocks have been declining for years. The creek now primarily provides habitat for coho, chum and pink salmon, along with cutthroat trout. Puget Sound steelhead and chinook salmon, both listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, occasionally spawn in the creek as well.
In addition to fish blockages, the creek suffers from poor water quality. This fish passage construction is just one project of many that the city has implemented to improve the creek’s health.
“The unknown of construction I think is always the biggest challenge with any construction project,” Ambler said. “But this project has actually run pretty smoothly.”
For Ambler, the most exciting part of the project was seeing the construction in action.
“I am super excited to see the before and after pictures and share them with the public so they can see what all this was for,” Ambler said.
