The Salmon Got Into the Restored East Fork Lewis Before the Public Did

"We have already seen chum, coho and chinook spawning in the newly restored and reconnected river," Elaine Placido, executive director of the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership, said at the project's completion celebration, as The Columbian reported.

The fish moved into roughly three miles of rebuilt river channel as soon as the water was let in. The public's way into the same stretch is coming back one gate at a time, and the gate at the center of it, the East Fork Lewis River Greenway at Danger Park, stays restricted through the winter of 2027. If you want to see this fall's run in the restored river, go to the public parks along the river.

What the river got back

The East Fork Lewis River Reconnection Project took two years of construction and returned a three-mile stretch of the river to what The Columbian described as its pre-European settlement condition. The work centered on the former Ridgefield Pits, abandoned gravel mines about four miles upstream from La Center.

Those pits are the reason the fish story matters. Heavy rains in the mid-1990s pushed the river over its levees and into the old mines. When the water dropped, it stayed trapped in the pits and warmed up. That warm water was bad for juvenile and spawning salmon, and it blocked access to the upper part of the watershed. For about three decades, a stretch of river a short drive from Battle Ground and La Center worked against the fish trying to pass through it.

The fix was heavy earthwork. Crews took out the berms and levees that held the river in a single channel, cut a braided network of new side channels, and regraded about 300 acres of floodplain. The Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership's project page says the project runs from Lower Daybreak Regional Park to Cemetery Bend, with construction by Tapani Inc. and Aquatic Contracting. The partnership's staff spent 10 years on planning, design, grants and permits before the first phase broke ground in April 2025.

The new channels have already been through high water. Kari Dupler of the partnership's science team told The Columbian that the biggest surprise was the high water over the winter, and that the site "perform[ed] exactly like we expected it to." That was the same December 2025 high-flow event that damaged the Daybreak boat ramp, which is why the ramp is still closed.

The access map, one gate at a time

The project area covers more than one site. It includes Lower Daybreak Park, a Clark County maintenance yard, the East Fork Lewis River Greenway at Danger Park, the Ridgefield Pits and Dyer Creek. Each one has its own status, and they don't match. Here is what the Estuary Partnership lists:

Clark County's July closure notice set Oct. 15 as the reopening date for the lower park west of Northeast Daybreak Road, and said the reopening would come with a community event hosted by the partnership and the county. Check the county's Daybreak Regional Park page before you drive out, because the county posts status changes there.

The boat ramp is a separate problem from the restoration. The county says the launch is unsafe to use, and because it sits next to a protected, fish-bearing river, repairs need specific permits first. The county is waiting on approval from regulatory agencies. The July notice also said the repair needs funding identified, and gave no estimated reopening date. Lewisville's ramp is the open put-in this fall, and the partnership is asking boaters to use caution in the restored reach, since the new channels and large woody debris can create hazards.

Where the fish are watchable from a trail

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's salmon viewing guide lists four Clark County locations. Three of them are on the East Fork. Each one gives you something a little different.

• Daybreak Regional Park. This 77.3-acre park northwest of Battle Ground is where the restored reach begins, and Cemetery Bend is where it ends. It has multiuse paths and a viewpoint over the East Fork. In the lower park, part of the Daybreak Trail was moved farther from the river. Crews also cut a floodplain bench along the bank and installed wood structures to slow erosion. This is the closest trail-side look at the new work.
• Lewisville Regional Park. Lewisville has a boat launch, fishing access and nearly 2.8 miles of trail.
• Lucia Falls Regional Park. The county describes a view of steelhead leaping at the falls. A 2.5-mile trail connects Lucia Falls to Moulton Falls if you want a longer walk.

The fourth WDFW site in the county is the Cedar Creek Grist Mill. Cedar Creek is one of the North Lewis tributaries, not the East Fork. WDFW's general guidance is to watch quietly from the bank, stay out of the water and respect closures. Statewide, it lists July through November as peak viewing months.

The calendar runs on fish time

The project finished just as the river's fall season got going. A species profile from the Native Fish Society, which draws on a 2004 regional subbasin plan, gives the typical East Fork windows. These are historical patterns, not a forecast for 2026.

1. Chum typically run from mid-October through November and peak in late November.
2. Early-stock coho typically spawn from late October into November.
3. Late-stock coho typically spawn from late November into March and peak from December into early January, in the river below Lucia Falls.

By that pattern, the weeks after Lower Daybreak's scheduled reopening line up with the chum peak, and the coho run continues past the holidays. A visit to Daybreak's viewpoint in late November and another to Lewisville in December would cover two different parts of the same run.

County Council Chair Sue Marshall described what the restored stretch now offers, in remarks quoted by The Columbian:

"What we have today, if you're floating or fishing along the river, you will be experiencing what our great-grandparents and people who go back even further experienced on this river."

Marshall also said the county's vision for a greenway along the East Fork goes back more than 40 years, and that finishing this project is central to it. That greenway is the piece still behind the restriction.

The first public visit to the Greenway is a planting day

The river is finished, but the riverbank isn't. The Estuary Partnership has secured about $300,000 for ongoing monitoring, and crews and volunteers will plant 100,000 native plants, shrubs and trees on the east side of the project over the coming months. Placido told The Columbian that "probably hundreds" of volunteers have already helped with plantings.

The next scheduled public event on the East Fork is at the same Greenway that is closed to casual visitors. The partnership's volunteer calendar lists an MLK Day planting on Monday, Jan. 18, 2027, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., at the East Fork Lewis River Greenway and Danger Park near Northeast Daybreak Road and Northeast 82nd Avenue. Registration is required in advance through the event sign-up page. The partnership's planting season runs from October through March, and its volunteering page lists events at other sites in the meantime.

For now, the people seeing the center of the restored reach are mostly the ones there to plant it. Everyone else can watch the same fish from Daybreak's viewpoint, Lewisville's trail or the falls at Lucia Falls Regional Park.

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