Three Creek Preserve

Location: North Shore Road and Sheridan Trail
Size: 104.68 acres
Public Access: No
Easement granted:  April 2007
Easement type: Conservation
Grantees: Whatcom Land Trust

6-cascading-creek 5-creek-face-upstream

The City of Bellingham granted this conservation easement to help protect the water quality of Lake Whatcom, the drinking water source for the Bellingham area.  Located between Olsen Creek and Smith Creek, the property falls from an elevation of 1200 feet above sea level to about 440 feet, with much of the property very steep and rocky.  It abuts State forestland on the north and east.  A power transmission corridor and a small tract of forest borders the land on the south and southwest, while a rural residential tract lies northwest of the property.

A logging road winds through the property, and old skid roads and stumps are evidence of past timber harvest.  A mixed second growth forest now covers the property.  It includes Douglas fir, western red cedar, red alder, western hemlock and big-leaf maple.  The understory includes salmonberry, Indian plum, vine maple, swordfern and other native plants.  Several unnamed creeks flow across the property, draining into Lake Whatcom.  This habitat supports a variety of animal species, including coyotes, deer, owls and hawks, as well as other small mammals and amphibians.

We need an environmental ethic that will tell us as much about using nature as about not using it… some kind of responsible use and non-use that might attain a balanced sustainable relationship. — William Cronon, On Common Ground, 1996