Nooksack River Estuary Habitat Assessment
Nooksack River Estuary Habitat Assessment Report for: Salmon Recovery Funding Board Office of the Interagency Committee 111 Washington Street SE P.O. Box 40917 Olympia, Washington 98504-0917 Report by: Melissa Brown, Michael Maudlin, and Jim Hansen Lummi Nation Natural Resources Department 2616 Kwina Road Bellingham, Washington 98226 IAC #01-1340N April 30, 2005 Acknowledgments This research and report were funded by a grant from the Washington State Salmon Recovery Board (SRFB). The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) supplemented grant monies for the completion of the report. Lummi Indian Nation’s Natural Resources Department (LNR) staff provided technical assistance and oversight. Field technicians Mike Williams, William Revey Jr., Frank Lawrence III, Lisa Phair, Anthony DeCoteau, Dewey Solomon Jr., Alphonso Washington, Jeremy Miller, and Terry Green, with fisheries biologists Mike MacKay, Adam Pfundt, and Gregg Dunphy, collected water quality and fish use data from estuarine and nearshore sites. Wetland scientist Lee First conducted vegetation surveys in the Lummi and Bellingham Bay deltas. GIS technician Victor Johnson orthorectified historic aerial photography for interpretation and GIS analysis. GIS coordinator Ann Stark provided guidance in the creation of geodatabases resulting from GIS analysis. Together, Victor and Ann assisted the authors in producing many of the GIS layers used for habitat mapping. Alan Chapman, ESA coordinator, and Randy Kinley Sr., ESA policy analyst, assisted the final editing of the report. Local historian Tim Wahl provided valuable assistance in compiling maps, photos, and reports detailing the function of the Nooksack estuary over time. Local consultant Chris Fairbanks provided peer review for editing. Huxley College of the Environment at Western Washington University and the Northwest Indian College provided intern assistance collecting macroinvertebrates in the field, sorting them in the lab, and describing their statistics.
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