Of course, the creek has had one year to recover after 229,950 gallons of fuel filled the streambed of Whatcom Creek. One of the theories, said Mark Henderson, a water quality specialist at the Department of Ecology, goes that there was so much product in the creek, it displaced the water in the creek, just pushed the water aside and went right down into the sediments. Initially the kill zone for aquatic life extended more than three miles to the mouth of Whatcom Creek at Bellingham Bay, and the riparian area was burned for more than 1.5 miles. The fireball wiped out understory vegetation such as bushes and grasses, and much of the canopy vegetation. With the loss of the vegetation came the loss of habitat for all of the life forms in the riparian area.
Higher temperatures can be lethal to cold-water adapted salmon.
Sediment, with no vegetation to hold it in place, eroded into the creek. We do know what we collected dead out of the stream several thousand dead fish of all kinds. Early reports estimated 30,000 dead fish, along with a few dead birds and rodents. Fogelsong was unable to comment because the long-term restoration plan is not yet published, but acknowledged that the figure was within a reasonable range. Everything in the creek was dead, Henderson said.