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Bellingham, Washington

A city buying back its watershed, a river that floods, and the berry capital.

Bellingham has been buying forest land around Lake Whatcom to protect its drinking water for twenty years and manages it as forest. Below it the Nooksack floods the valley farms, which grow more raspberries than anywhere in the country. Forest, water and farm questions meet here in one county.

Talk to Eli All of Washington

The ground

Bellingham and Whatcom County

The city sits on Bellingham Bay with Lake Whatcom behind it in a forested basin, Galbraith Mountain and the Chuckanuts to the south, and the Nooksack River valley to the north running out to the delta and the Lummi reservation. The valley is dairies and raspberry and blueberry fields up to the Canadian line; east it climbs through Deming and Glacier into the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest. The Nooksack's 2021 floods put much of the lower valley under water.

Who buys mapping here

  • City of Bellingham: Public Works and the Lake Whatcom Watershed Program, Parks and Recreation, the Urban Forestry program
  • Whatcom County: Public Works and River and Flood, Planning and Development Services, Parks, Emergency Management
  • Lake Whatcom Water and Sewer District and the Whatcom Conservation District
  • The Lummi Nation and the Nooksack Indian Tribe and their natural resources departments
  • Whatcom Land Trust and the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association
  • Western Washington University and its forest and marine programs
  • Puget Sound Energy and the lines through the foothills; the Port of Bellingham
  • Raspberry, blueberry and dairy operations in the valley; the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest

Getting there

From Medford

Bellingham is the far north of the state, about nine hours from Medford by road or a flight to Seattle and ninety minutes up Interstate 5. It is the last stop of a Puget Sound week.

The public lidar

What exists, and what it misses

Whatcom County has state portal lidar and the city's watershed program and the county flood work both use it. Forest health and canopy on the watershed lands, the state of the riparian plantings after the floods, and drainage on fields that were under water are the questions a current drone flight answers better than terrain alone.

What we would fly

The lanes that fit Bellingham

Post harvest assessment map for the Oregon Department of Forestry: downed woody debris volume by decay class in one acre cells, with species of standing trees.
Forestry
Three dimensional view of a farm elevation model with fields, tree mounds, and the pond in relief.
Farm Planning
Orthomosaic of a creek corridor through Phoenix, Oregon, clipped to the project area.
Property
Infrared heat map over a lake and forest: heat perimeter, isolated heat points classed by temperature, and 50, 100, and 200 foot mopup buffers.
Wildland Fire

Every service

Everything we do, in Bellingham

  • Forestry Start here

    Stand inventory, species and health classes, downed woody debris counted and measured from the air, post harvest monitoring.

  • Farm planning Start here

    Terrain, drainage low points, slope and sun, canopy, and plan overlays drawn on a current orthomosaic of the whole farm.

  • Rivers, riparian and habitat Start here

    Species along a river corridor, wetlands and habitat, cold water seeps found with thermal, and baselines for restoration work.

  • GIS consulting and data

    Hosted data, web maps and dashboards, Survey123 field apps, scripted reporting, and the cleanup of the data you already have.

  • Drone LiDAR

    Bare earth under the canopy, contours, surface and canopy height models, classified point clouds and line corridors, PPK controlled and checked.

  • Tree inventory and canopy

    Every crown in a city, a park system or a campus, with height, species and health, checked against trees on the ground.

  • Wildfire fuels and CWPP support

    Canopy height, ladder fuels and structure exposure for a Community Wildfire Protection Plan, citywide when the plan needs it.

  • Night infrared on active fires

    Heat perimeters and hotspots in the incident team’s hands before the morning briefing. The pipeline that builds the package runs at the UAS Wildland Fire Collaborative, the nonprofit we founded.

  • Property and site design

    Design ready contours, tree points and surface models, in the formats and coordinate system the engineer specifies.

  • Multispectral imaging

    Five calibrated bands, vegetation indices, and species and health classification with its accuracy reported.

  • Thermal infrared

    A calibrated temperature in every pixel, flown as a mapping mission: fire heat classified in degrees, prescribed fire mortality, cold water seeps.

  • Federal and agency work

    Fire infrared, LiDAR on abandoned mine lands and forest data for federal land managers. Registered in SAM.gov.

Nearest work

Whatcom County is beyond where we have flown so far. The applicable record: a city watershed's conifers classed by health, a river corridor classified by species, and a farm planned on drone LiDAR terrain.

Douglas fir crowns colored by health class over the Ashland watershed orthomosaic.

Forestry 2023 to 2024

At risk, declining, dieback, dead

City of Ashland

About 30,000 Douglas fir crowns classed by health across the city's watershed lands, so the city could see the die off and act on it.

Read the case
Riparian canopy polygons drawn as coloured outlines by dominant species over a true colour orthomosaic of a river corridor.

Forestry 2025

Riparian species and cold seeps on the Scott River

Cascade Stream Solutions, with a botanist leading field identification. We flew it as their subcontractor and reported to them.

Fourteen riparian species classified across 423 acres of river corridor, with thermal mapping that pointed to groundwater fed cold seeps.

Read the case
Three dimensional overview of the farm elevation model draped over the landscape.

Farm Planning 2023

A farm plan on real ground

Plant Oregon with Oregon Urban Rural and Community Forestry, a tree nursery in development

Terrain, ponds, tree mounds, and a site plan drawn on a current ortho of the whole farm.

Read the case

The record

Every project we have published

Forestry and trees

Rivers and habitat

Wildfire fuels and planning

Night infrared on fires

Terrain and site design

Farm planning

Bellingham, the north end of the week.

The watershed forest, a Nooksack reach, a flooded field or a city park. Name it and we will plan the last days of the Puget Sound trip around it.

Talk to Eli

Email info@roguerecon.net or call 808 298 6290.