River project money at risk

County, Skokomish tribe cost-sharing project

Matt Baide | Jun 16, 20220

The Skokomish River Ecosystem Restoration Project money is at risk due to inaction by Mason County in acquiring the land necessary to complete the project.

The project was the topic of a special Mason County commissioners meeting June 2 over Zoom with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers employees.

According to the project website, the effort aims to restore 277 acres in the Skokomish River Basin that is habitat for chinook and chum salmon and a key food source for southern resident orca whales. The project will improve habitat for steelhead and bull trout and more than 100 wildlife species known to use the Skokomish River during their life cycle.

Restoration will include channel realignment near the confluence of the North and South Fork of the Skokomish River to allow for year-round fish passage, install large woody debris and engineered logjams, reconnect a historical side channel and pursue wetland restoration at two sites. The effort is expected to benefit about 40 miles of river habitat that is periodically inaccessible to Endangered Species Act animals due to lack of water.

The project partnership agreement was signed Sept. 17, 2019, between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Skokomish Indian Tribe, Mason

County and the state Department of Natural Resources. Elizabeth Dierich, civilian deputy district engineer for programs and project manager for the the Corps, said the project is in a highly volatile environment with many projects in the system.

“What we’re finding is that we really have to fight for the funds for this project and we have to have a real estate plan that we can fight for this is what we’re going to do, we’re going to get this,” Dierich said. “The bottom line is we have $13.6 million of federal funds that we received in our fiscal year 2019 and there are projects out there in the system that are short of funds and ready to go and the programs folks up and down the line are looking under every rock to find those funds. One of the reasons that it’s really important for us is as we go into the different environments to fight for the funds, we need to be able to articulate where we’re at, what we’re doing and what the plan is.”

Mason County and the Skokomish tribe are cost-sharing, nonfederal sponsors working with the Corps on the restoration effort, which is expected to cost $22.1 million. Mason County Public Works Director Loretta Swanson said the county is matching money for land acquisition through the Floodplains by Design grant, which expires in June 2023. Swanson said the target is to complete land acquisition by the end of the federal fiscal year so time remains for reviews and certifications for summer construction.

“We’ve got about four months essentially to wrap up acquisitions to meet that goal by the end of September,” Swanson said. “What we’ve got remaining are 19 fee parcels, 43 TCEs (temporary construction easement) and about the same in terms of permanent channel improvement easements so we’ve had little progress overall during the last six months. We had a burst of progress prior to that and we’re hoping to get our real estate acquisition specialist on board and turn them loose and that’s been a little bit of a delay.”

Swanson said the county has contacted an outside negotiating firm and “that is our plan to move forward is use someone outside to do our negotiation and acquisition.”

There are 121 acquisition packages required among about 65 landowners, according to Swanson and Skokomish Tribe Natural Resources Director Joseph Pavel.

Jessica Winkler, chief of the Civil Works Branch in the Seattle District of the Army Corps of Engineers, said they can’t keep carrying over the money from fiscal year 2019.

“This project is incredibly beneficial and the cost per habitat unit of this project is very low compared to anything else in Puget Sound, so the merits of the project itself has allowed us to hold onto the funding for this long,” Winkler said. “It is a great project. We really want to build this project with you but it’s just not acceptable in the federal program to hold on to $12.6 million dollars of ecosystem restoration money for three or more years. It’s just very uncommon. We have been able to hold onto it just because it is such a good project so at any point, there could be another project that needs this funding and we will be asked at that time, swear on your life, sign in blood, when are you going have the real estate to award this contract? Right now, we’ve had a plan from you in the past, there has been progress, but the interim milestones have not been met so our chain doesn’t believe us anymore that there’s a viable plan.”

Winkler said there needs to be a more concrete plan and then a demonstration of meeting interim milestones to build confidence that the project will proceed.

Seattle District Commander for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Alexander Bullock said he defends this project quarterly and it’s getting increasingly more difficult to defend the money until the county has a plan. He said of the 121 acquisition packages or parcels for the project, he said he thinks 85 still need to be executed.

“That’s a steep climb, right? You’d have to have a plan that was what, 10 or 20 a month to really get after this fiscal year,” Bullock said. “If any of us were going to bet as to whether or not that would happen and we were going to bet our houses and livelihood on it, I wouldn’t stake my house on it.”

Bullock said a plan that has solid milestones and a timeline and demonstrating the plan through action would make it easy for him to defend the money for the project.

Skokomish Tribe Natural Resources Policy Adviser Dave Herrera reminded everyone during the meeting that the Skokomish River is necessary for recovering salmon in Puget Sound.

“It’s the only chinook producer in Hood Canal so it’s critical and there’s a lot of people investing a lot of state, federal, even local dollars into salmon recovery across the Puget Sound,” Herrera said. “We are having some successes here in the Skokomish and getting the ecosystem restoration plan completed would be huge to one of the last pieces of the puzzle here to restoring the health of the Skokomish River itself, which would lift Hood Canal out of having the chinook listing on us. I think there’s a lot of people out there that have an interest in seeing us be successful.”

Commissioner Kevin Shutty said it’s clear the county needs to start delivering some results.

“Hopefully, the next time this group gets together, we’re talking about that progress,” Shutty said. “That we’re looking through the windshield and not the rearview mirror.”