The Issue

While scenic and deceptively placid, the way the gravel pit named Gold Creek Pond was constructed causes extreme harm to the Gold Creek watershed. As early as 1929, when the state needed material to construct Sunset Highway—what we know today as I-90— it dug massive pits throughout the valley to extract the gravel needed to build the road. One of those pits is now known as Gold Creek “Pond.”

In the 1970s, highway expansion required even more material so freeway builders extracted another 750,000 cubic yards of gravel from this pit, which is located right next to the edge of Gold Creek. After construction was complete, rather than making the effort to restore this gravel pit to its original wetland habitat, it was allowed to fill with water draining away from the once vibrant adjacent creek. Once the area was hydroseeded, and trails and picnic tables added, the area became beloved as the Gold Creek “Pond” we know today.

Despite its deceptive beauty, the area’s unnatural construction intensifies the creek’s annual dry period, which is especially harmful to aquatic species like bull trout that need a consistent stream flow to migrate and reproduce.

The Science is Clear

Years of on-the-ground science show this old gravel pit is hurting the creek, the valley and the local ecology:

• It’s a siphon. At 60 feet, the pit is the deepest part of the floodplain. It is below the creek bed and lowers the entire groundwater table, pulling water away from the creek and interrupting its natural flow.

• It’s a barrier. During highway construction, builders constructed a levee to keep water out of the construction site. That levee remains and continues to cut off the creek off from 90 percent of its floodplain—keeping it from meandering naturally to create valuable wildlife habitat.

• It’s warm. The deep, still pit makes water in Gold Creek warm and stagnant, which can suffocate fish to death in the summer when warm temperatures reduce (dissolved) oxygen levels.

• It’s sterile. While you might see some wildlife near the pit, the water is so deep and the sides so steep that many native species that once bred in abundance here—like frogs and salamanders— are absent because of the pit’s hostile conditions.

• It’s invasive. Invasive plant species have taken over this old construction site, changing the soil’s chemistry, and inhibiting the growth of native plants.

Gold Creek is the only tributary to Keechelus Lake that supports bull trout spawning and egg incubation.

Uninhabitable Conditions

Bull trout—listed federally as a threatened species—are an indicator species at Gold Creek. They need clean, ice cold, flowing water, as well as complex and connected habitat, to survive and reproduce. The fact that they are struggling to survive tells scientists that something is seriously wrong with the watershed.

In its current state, Gold Creek cannot sustain the conditions that bull trout, salmon, and other native wildlife need to thrive, which is especially concerning because Gold Creek is a key link in north-to-south wildlife movement.

Gold Creek restoration is about more than conserving a single species. It’s about strengthening an entire ecosystem.