Completion of Phase 2 of the 5th ST Waterway Habitat Restoration Project

Submitted by Nancy Henderson.

STEILACOOM – The Fifth Street Waterway drains approximately 40% of runoff in Steilacoom, flowing from Farrells Marsh and the Cormorant neighborhood. The water empties into Puget Sound via the Martin Street culvert.

Over the years, a 600-foot stretch of land along the 5th St Waterway had become degraded, consisting of a combination of mowed grass and dense thickets of blackberry vines. Little native vegetation was in place to help cool the water before it reached the Sound or to provide a food source for birds, pollinators, or wildlife.

In 2023, the Town of Steilacoom was awarded a $2500 grant from the Pierce County Watersheds Small Grant Program. This grant enabled us to begin Phase 1 of a project to remove the invasive plants and restore the exposed area of the waterway with plants native to the Pacific NW. With consultation from our partner, the Pierce Conservation District, volunteers covered the ground along 140 feet of waterway with cardboard and wood chips to suppress the weeds. Two months later,16 volunteers planted more than 150 native plants and bushes. After three work parties between 29 Oct 2023 and 20 January 2024, Phase 1 was complete.

Phase 2, again funded by a $2500 grant from the PC Watersheds Small Grant Program, was a continuation of that project, but a much more challenging endeavor, as blackberry thickets were well established, and the stretch was longer, deeper, and steeper.

Thank you Cassidy Chaney, Luz Starck, Breck Lebegue, Rick Clark, Mike Henderson, Rachel Su, Pauline Swiger, Rick Ash, Jim Burke, and Mary Lou Parnell for removing the last of the stubborn blackberry roots, laying down cardboard, hauling wood chips, and planting more native plants in what had previously been a tangle of strangling blackberry vines.

Your accomplishment of closing out Phase 2 was the culmination of determined efforts by 104 volunteers donating 214 hours at 13 organized work parties over 11 months between 13 May 2024 and 13 April 2025. Individual workers volunteered an additional 45 hours. More than 178 plants of 24 different species have replaced the domineering blackberry thickets, adding to those installed in Phase 1.

The plants are already sprouting leaves and flowers. Something about wild native plants, reclaiming their territory along the waterway, feels like a small miracle.

Thank you for making this happen.