This week contractor Doyon Project Services and sub-contractor Michels Directional Crossings worked at getting the powerline burial access road in shape to handle the very heavy equipment needed for the directional bore under the river. Many truckloads of steel plates, wooden mats, and coarse wood chips were delivered and placed over the soft soils that make up the former pastures. Several Marukas (dump truck on tracks) joined the fleet of vehicles on site. The road will be ready late on Friday June 25 and construction of the bore pits should begin the following Monday.

Meanwhile, Pat Schulte, land surveyor with Ducks Unlimited, pounded hundreds of stakes with colors flags in the ground to mark the locations of the new tidal channels in preparation for their excavation in several weeks. Additional stakes and flagging were installed by Refuge staff to mark sensitive areas such as vegetation sampling transects, marsh surface elevation measuring apparatus, and water monitoring wells, to warn the equipment operators to avoid those areas. Refuge staff also continued conducting bird surveys on the Ni-les'tun Unit and began preparations for fish salvage operations that will need to take place as drainage ditches are filled later this summer. Logs with root wads still attached continue to be delivered and stockpiled for later use. The logs will be placed in tidal channels where they will serve as valuable habitat for juvenile anadromous fish.