The tagline describing Jefferson Land Trust’s work and vision for Jefferson County is “Farms, Fish and Forests Forever.” Places that epitomize this for me are the Tarboo Valley and Dabob Bay.

If I were a salmon I’d want my natal stream to be Tarboo Creek, which meanders through the valley. That’s because Tarboo Creek and Dabob Bay comprise one of the few intact lowland stream and estuary areas in Puget Sound.

The valley and bay are in an unusually pristine, scenic and hard-to-get-to pocket of the Salish Sea. It’s a special place that the Land Trust, our conservation partner Northwest Watershed Institute (NWI) and a number of Washington state agencies have for decades worked in partnership with local landowners to protect.

This landscape-scale protection effort stretches from Tarboo Lake, where Tarboo Creek originates, through the valley to Dabob Bay.

It’s extremely rare to have an estuary — the place where a stream or river meets the sea — where very little development has occurred.

This particular estuary had a bit of luck. Its rugged geography, unusually steep banks, and Dabob Bay’s deep water pushed Highway 101 further inland than at all other major estuaries along Hood Canal, where the highway crosses the mouths of the rivers.

As one of Washington’s highest functioning coastal spit and tidal wetland systems, Tarboo Creek and the estuary of Dabob Bay are critical for maintaining the water quality of north Hood Canal, its productive shellfish farms, and a rich diversity of native fish and wildlife.

In 1984 the state Department of Natural Resources established the Dabob Bay Natural Area to protect two globally rare plant communities growing on the saltmarsh spits.

Initially, that protected 350 acres. It was just the beginning.

Soon thereafter, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife purchased 160 acres at the head of the bay to protect the lower mile of forested Tarboo Creek and some of the state’s best spawning grounds for chum and coho salmon.  

Over time, to better protect the estuary ecosystem as a whole, DNR has twice expanded the Dabob Bay Natural Area’s boundary. Today, the natural area includes 10,000 acres of shoreline, marsh and forestland surrounding the bay. Within that boundary, DNR and conservation partners have worked with willing landowners to permanently conserve about 3,000 acres.

Upstream in the Tarboo Valley, NWI, which was founded by biologists Peter Bahls and Judith Rubin, purchased the 198-acre Daniel Yarr farm in 2005 and began to create the Tarboo Wildlife Preserve. To ensure its permanent protection, NWI donated a conservation easement on the property to the Land Trust.

Since then, they’ve continued to purchase adjoining parcels with private donations and county, state and federal grants, restoring habitat as necessary. Tarboo Wildlife Preserve now contains nearly 500 acres of restored valley and upland forest.

Elsewhere along the creek and bay, many private landowners have donated or sold conservation easements on their farms, forestlands and wildlife habitat properties. Increasing that mosaic of permanently rural, productive and healthy lands, the protection has been a combined effort of the Northwest Watershed Institute and the Land Trust.

In most cases, generous landowners also have partnered with NWI to restore and improve the stream habitat for salmon and other wildlife.

In 2018, two beautiful farms totaling nearly 100 acres along Tarboo Creek were protected under easement with funding support from Jefferson County’s Conservation Futures Fund.

Ultimately, Tarboo Creek and the clear, clean, very deep waters of Dabob Bay have created an unspoiled habitat for salmon, shellfish, seals, seabirds and other wildlife. In addition to supporting wildlife, conservation of those areas provides long-term local economic benefits by helping boost fishing, tourism and the shellfish industries — all of which depend on the health of our local environment.

These benefits are felt near and far. Shellfish farmers are the largest employer in the southern part of east Jefferson County, producing the county’s largest agricultural export.

Oyster farms, especially the hatchery run by Taylor Shellfish, rely on Dabob’s pristine, forest- and tideflat-filtered waters to produce their world-renowned oysters.

And, a dozen years ago, when oysters stopped producing naturally in many places along the West Coast, some of our local shellfish farmers were responsible for restocking the affected West Coast oyster suppliers.

If you’re interested in seeing Tarboo Valley for yourself, Northwest Watershed Institute allows people to visit Tarboo Wildlife Preserve with prior permission. Email peter@nwwatershed.org if you’d like to visit the property on your own or as part of one of NWI’s periodic field tours for larger groups.

Sarah Spaeth is director of conservation and strategic partnerships for Jefferson Land Trust (www.saveland.org). She works closely with landowners and community members, as well as governmental and nonprofit agencies to shepherd land projects through to protection. Jefferson Land Trust’s column appears monthly in The Leader.