The Washington State Salmon Recovery Funding Board and the Puget Sound Partnership have announced more than $60 million in grant funding for over 150 restorative salmon habitat projects across the state.
Of that total, just over $825,000 will come to four projects in Lewis County, approximately $1.2 million will go to another four projects in Thurston County and roughly $600,000 will go to two projects in Grays Harbor County.
Projects set to receive funding range from those focused on restoring habitat through tree planting to removing or improving stream blockages such as old road culverts to digging channels off of mainstream rivers to slow the flow and give fish more area of habitat to occupy.
According to a news release from the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office, some grants also received funding through the Puget Sound Acquisition and Restoration Program.
The ultimate goal is to support habitat for native salmonid species such as steelhead and coho that have been federally listed as threatened or endangered in most of the state since as far back as 2000.
“Recovering salmon in Puget Sound is urgent work,” said Larry Epstein, deputy director of the Puget Sound Partnership. “We have seen significant declines in salmon populations, and we cannot afford to lose ground. We also have seen that when we do the right things in the right places, salmon can begin to recover. These grants represent the collective effort of many organizations, agencies and communities working together to restore habitat and ensure salmon remain a vital part of our environment, culture and economy.”
Cascade Forest Conservancy (Lewis County)
The Cascade Forest Conservancy is set to receive $334,413 to restore roughly 2 miles of streams in the Salmon Creek watershed. Salmon Creek is a tributary of the Cowlitz River and supports significant fish populations. It also serves as a water source for Vader in South Lewis County and Castle Rock in North Cowlitz County. According to the project description, the effort will focus on replanting streambanks, reconnecting floodplains, reducing erosion and creating more varied habitat types. The conservancy will also place structures to replicate beaver dams and post-assisted log structures in the streams and fall trees into the stream. Fallen logs help habitat in many ways from slowing the stream, helping to reduce erosion, to providing shade and shelter for vulnerable fish to spawn.
Lewis Conservation District
The Lewis Conservation District will receive $185,556 in grant funds to replace a fish-blocking culvert on Ripple Creek with a bridge. The project will open habitat for coho salmon and steelhead trout. Culverts are pipes or other structures that carry streams under roads and may block fish passage when they are too small or too high. According to the project description, the project is part of a coordinated effort to replace culverts in the Stearns Creek Basin. Lewis County is working on replacing the downstream barriers and the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, City of Napavine and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad are working with landowners upstream to replace the remaining barriers.
Lewis County Public Works
The Lewis County Public Works Department will receive $307,850 for two separate fish passage projects. The first will replace two fish passage barriers in Ripple Creek in two different places under Haywire Road. According to the project description, the new fish passage structures will restore access to more than a mile of habitat for coho salmon and winter steelhead trout. The project design will also choose the correct locations to install large woody material, streambed material, meander bars and meandering low flow notches.
As part of the second project, the county will replace two adjacent undersized culverts in the creek that are restricting fish passage. The project is part of a coordinated effort between Lewis County, Lewis Conservation District and the City of Chehalis to address all passage barriers in Berwick Creek. The county also will place large woody material and streambed gravels in the creek.
Capitol Land Trust (Thurston County)
Capitol Land Trust will use $145,000 to buy a voluntary conservation easement to conserve nearly 36 acres of Eld Inlet shoreline, McLane Creek banks, wetlands and uplands. The property is at the mouth of McLane Creek in Olympia. The protection of this property will expand the land conserved by the land trust in Eld Inlet to nearly 450 acres. Permanent protection of this property will protect prime soils and soils of statewide importance, open space, as well as nearly a half-mile of shoreline along McLane Creek and its estuary. Large numbers of juvenile fish born in McLane Creek use the area for feeding and transitioning to life at sea.
South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group (Thurston County)
The South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group will receive $775,510 for two projects. For the first, the organization will reach out to landowners interested in restoration in the middle Deschutes River basin north of Tenino. According to the project description, the goal is to improve river habitat, floodplain connection and riverbank buffers. The enhancement group will begin with a comprehensive river survey and an evaluation of streamside buffers, parcel size, stream mileage, floodplain potential area, potential for water storage and fine sediment reduction, and proximity to other priority land. Then the enhancement group will reach out to landowners and develop a list of prioritized landowners, a report, a web mapping tool and a preliminary design for one property.
The second project will support the construction of logjams in the upper Deschutes River and Mitchell Creek to the southeast of Tenino. The logjams will be placed in 1.7 miles of the upper Deschutes and 0.2 miles of Mitchell Creek at its confluence with the Deschutes. About 100 trees will be tipped into the river as part of this project, and nearly 250 additional pieces of wood will be placed by helicopter.
Thurston Conservation District (Thurston County)
The Thurston Conservation District is set to receive $253,000 to complete designs for a project to restore Thompson Creek, near the border of Thurston and Lewis counties. The designs will explore alternatives for restoration, including where and how to place large woody materials and reconnect the floodplain. The next phase of the project will control weeds and plant native species on 10 acres along the creek’s banks. The project’s end goal is to restore rearing and spawning habitat for winter steelhead trout and coho salmon.
Grays Harbor Conservation District (Grays Harbor County)
The Grays Harbor Conservation District will receive $356,192 to restore and maintain nearly a mile of habitat along the banks of the West Fork Satsop River. The conservation district will mow grass and apply mulch to reduce weeds and promote tree and shrub establishment of recent plantings funded by the Conservation Commission on 12.6 acres.
The conservation district also will install 2,350 native trees and shrubs on 5.6 acres of pasture grasses, reed canary grass and blackberry. This work will be followed up with stewardship mowing and mulching.
Wild Salmon Center (Grays Harbor County)
The Wild Salmon Center will get $249,602 to replace a culvert that blocks fish passage in an unnamed tributary to the Raft River, opening access to nearly a quarter-mile of spawning and rearing habitat, including 17 acres of forested wetlands.
The tributary and river are used by bull trout, which is a species listed as threatened with extinction under the federal Endangered Species Act, and by steelhead, resident and sea-run cutthroat trout, and coho salmon.
