Salmon is an important cultural and economic resource for District residents but has been impacted by the loss of stream habitat due to invasive species and industry road construction. Since 2012, TTCD has been working towards complete watershed connectivity across the District by removing fish passage barriers along the 260 miles of remote roads. Undersized and/or poorly installed culverts can cut off access to upstream habitats for aquatic organisms including all five species of pacific salmon. As of 2024, TTCD has replaced 13 culverts restoring access to 60.2 stream miles and over 500 acres of lake acres.
Fish Passage
Salmon is an important cultural and economic resource for District residents but has been impacted by the loss of stream habitat due to invasive species and industry road construction. Since 2012, TTCD has been working towards complete watershed connectivity across the District by removing fish passage barriers along the 260 miles of remote roads. Undersized and/or poorly installed culverts can cut off access to upstream habitats for aquatic organisms including all five species of pacific salmon. As of 2024, TTCD has replaced 13 culverts restoring access to 60.2 stream miles and over 500 acres of lake acres.
Upcoming Projects in 2025
Roberts Creek Sites: Two culverts are slated for replacement in 2025 and will open 1.07 miles and 3.3 wetland acres to coho, kings, pinks, dolly varden, rainbow trout and hooligan.
Upper Tyonek Creek culvert replacement designs are complete, and will open 15.9 miles of upstream habitat to coho, dolly varden and rainbow trout.
Watershed Monitoring
Water quality is critical for the health of our District ecosystems and the people that depend on them. The West, Susitna, and Yentna areas of West Cook Inlet provide important spawning and rearing habitat for many of the Chinook salmon destined for Tyonek setnets. With ongoing warming air and water temperatures, altered flow regimes, documented vegetation shifts, and invasions of northern pike (Esox lucius) and the aquatic invasive plant Elodea canadensis in southcentral Alaska, establishing a baseline for important spawning and rearing locations is critical to identifying areas of high-priority locations for conservation work.
TTCD established 5 water temperature and water quality monitoring sites in 2015. TTCD has now added 16 additional water temperature monitoring sites across the District, strategically sampling a variety of stream types in lower and upper sections of District watersheds. Hourly water temperature data is availably publicly at https://aktemp.uaa.alaska.edu/#/.
Salmon Population
TTCD currently monitors the salmon population in Northern Pike-infested waters through juvenile salmonid minnow trapping, coho salmon spawning ground surveys and redd counts. Spawning ground surveys provide a count of salmon redd abundance and an estimate of the breeding salmon population. Conducted at regular intervals, spawning ground surveys can detect salmon population trends and potential salmon recovery related to a decreasing Northern Pike population. In 2024, TTC added 18 new nominations to the anadromous waterways catalog, documenting them as salmon streams and adding protections to critical fish habitat. TTCD is continuing long term monitoring on Threemile, Robert’s Creek and Chuitbuna Creek, begun in 2018.
