Site Description

Grays Harbor College has the good fortune to be located in the center of a small but diverse watershed. The 125-acre campus encompasses Lake Swano and one-fifth of the length of Alder Creek, the outlet for the watershed.

The campus accounts for over ten percent of the total area of the Alder Creek watershed, a subwatershed of the lower Chehalis River basin. The 4.5-acre Lake Swano is the heart of the watershed and the focus of the Grays Harbor College Model Watershed Project.

Located partially within the Aberdeen city limits and Grays Harbor County, where Alder Creek enters the Chehalis River delta, the Model Watershed is a cross-section of landscape diversity. The landscape is comprised of myriad land uses and habitat types not normally encountered in such concentration.

Half of the Model Watershed Project site is a former gravel pit that ceased operation in the late 1950s. Thus much of the present day landscape is represented by a rather unusual landform in a very early stage of natural succession. Also included on the site are numerous wetlands that developed as a result of the gravel mining, as well as natural wetlands and stands of conifers aged at over 120 years.