U.S. Forest Service On Resurrection Creek Salmon Comeback

The following is courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service:

The Resurrection Creek Restoration Project is healing a century-old environmental scar near Hope, Alaska, by bringing together traditionally opposing forces—including conservation groups, federal agencies, and active mining companies—united by a shared love of salmon. (Forest Service video by Savannah Halleaux)

Resurrection Creek – A river reborn
Mines, nonprofits and agencies collaborate to restore salmon habitat  

For a century, a 2-mile stretch of Resurrection Creek near Anchorage, Alaska, ran straight as a bullet. Channeled by towering mounds of gravel tailing piles, the damaged stream could no longer support the salmon runs, mitigate floodwaters, or allow moose and other wildlife to cross. It was a problematic scar from outdated historic mining practices.

“Without intervention, without this restoration project, this creek would never go back to its natural state of being,” said Marian Giannulis, Trout Unlimited Alaska communications and engagement director. “It was just something that we knew that we had to do.”

So, in 2022, Trout Unlimited, Kinross Alaska, Hope Mining Company, National Forest Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, and the Forest Service came together for the Resurrection Creek Restoration Projectto fund the river’s habitat resurrection.

What could bring environmental groups, mining companies, and the federal government together? Giannulis credits salmon.

Marian Giannulis, Trout Unlimited Alaska communications and engagement director, describes the importance of Resurrection Creek and other salmon habitats to Alaskans. (right) A stringer of sockeye salmon caught on the nearby Russian River, whose salmon habitat was also was restored through conservation efforts. (Forest Service photos by Savannah Halleaux)

In 2006, the Forest Service successfully restored a 1.5-mile section of the river upstream. Shortly thereafter, salmon spawned there again, with salmon counts there increasing more than 1,000% over the following decade. It was a resounding success for salmon habitat restoration—and Alaskans who rely on salmon for tourism, recreation, or to fill the freezer.

When resources to complete the remaining 2.2 miles of damaged banks downstream ran dry and subsequent efforts at funding stalled—and with it the prospect of better salmon fishing—the groups came together to make it happen. “Salmon brings us all together. It is a cultural tie for almost all of us in Alaska,” said Giannulis. “To have these nontraditional partners come together and work collaboratively over many years to conduct this restoration project is incredibly significant.”

Thank the fish.

Geometry of a reborn river

Using now outdated mining practices, 100 years ago miners stripped the riverbed and left miles of tailings piles, funneling the once curving river into one straight water channel. But to spawn and grow, salmon needed the river to have a mixture of riffles, pools, and glides. Riffles are the rocky areas where the river flows rapidly with choppy waters, pools have little velocity and are usually deeper than the surrounding water, and glides are the sections of the stream coming out of the pool.

“Resurrection Creek was one straight riffle, providing no habitat for fish,” said Corinne Marzullo, a Forest Service civil engineer.

Although salmon are known for their gravity-defying jumps up mountain-side falls, they do so to reach the calmer meanders and pools upstream. There they spawn and die. Thereafter, their offspring need the calmer pools to grow large enough to brave the rougher riffles back downstream to lakes or the ocean.

Marzullo’s team of Forest Service engineers, hydrologists, fish biologists, and contracted construction workers have worked for four years to change the river’s water flow from one straight riffle to a riffle, pool, glide and floodplain that support salmon eggs and young.

This means moving hundreds of tons of gravel per mile. So, Marzullo’s past four years have been an exercise in heavy-equipment logistics. Strung out across a 2.3-mile active construction corridor encompassing 75 acres of floodplain, she manages a massive footprint.  

“My day-to-day is basically keeping eight to 10 pieces of equipment moving efficiently,” Marzullo said. “Me and the crew that I’m working with were basically shooting grade and keeping equipment rolling on where we’re building channel or off-channel habitat or floodplain.”

But what makes the river restoration work here uniquely complex—and arguably historic—is its location. The restoration path is collocated with an active mining operation.

“Behind those trees back there, there is a mining operation with a whole wash plant, and they’re working back there,” Marzullo said. “And downstream we’re coordinating trucks going back and forth between miners and our operators.”

The daily operations require seamless cooperation between environmental restoration teams and active mining extraction operations. Yet the miners and river restoration workers have been successfully coordinating and working side-by-side for years.

“Working next to an active mining operation has made this project very interesting,” Marzullo said.

Although keeping heavy equipment moving effectively and efficiently is Marzullo’s charge, the payoff comes when the heavy machinery steps aside and her team can let nature take over.

Student Conservation Association intern Malia Reeg and Forest Service civil engineers Erin Ryan and Corinne Marzullo assess the grade and structure of the final stream meander on Phase II of the Resurrection Creek Restoration Project moments before it is connected river on June 23, 2026. (bottom left) The excavator carefully removes a final layer of gravel, connecting the new meander to the main river. (bottom right) Water fills the meander as the Forest Service engineers observe its progress. (Forest Service photos by Savannah Halleaux)

“It’s exciting to see a new channel being watered,” Marzullo said. “You construct it and then you divert it and turn the water on—and it’s hard to tell what a dry channel is going to do. Sometimes it does what you think and sometimes it doesn’t, but that’s pretty satisfying.”

Then come the salmon.

“It’s really cool to see them in there using the new features of the channel as they should be, and that they didn’t have before,” said Marzullo.  

A bittersweet completion

The conclusion of four years of major channel work represents a monumental milestone. The river is now less prone to flooding downstream towns, anglers and bears can enjoy healthier fish runs, and a historic scar in the landscape is largely healed.

For Marzullo, watching the final season of heavy earthmoving wrap up brings a sense of pride mixed with nostalgia.

“It’s actually kind of bittersweet that this is the last year because it’s a really cool project,” she said. “We’ve got this beautiful river valley that was destroyed by miners in the past, and it’s fun to see some natural habitat coming back into it—supported by mining! It’s just an awesome team that gets everything done.”