Salmon projects get $8.5M

Salmon in Oakland Bay, the Union and Tahuya rivers in North Mason, and Cranberry, Deer, Goldsborough and Mill creeks will benefit from $8.2 million in salmon recovery grants from the state.

On Monday, the Washington State Salmon Recovery Funding Board and the Puget Sound Partnership announced the awards of 150 grants in 29 counties totaling $81.5 million. The grants focus on improving salmon habitat and conserving shorelines and riverbanks.

"These are important projects that will help us restore our salmon populations," Gov. Jay Inslee said in a news release. "They provide many other benefits. When we clean up our rivers, we not only help salmon, we reduce flooding, help our communities adapt to climate change and preserve jobs that rely on healthy salmon and natural resources."

The Great Peninsula Conservancy will use a $1.4 million grant to buy and conserve 1 mile of the Tahuya River and about 130 acres of floodplain and riverbank forest in a critical reach of the river for Hood Canal summer chum recovery. The conservancy will also remove farm infrastructure and relocate tenants. It will also survey the water movement, habitat and fish use and analyze topographic information to develop different ways of restoring the area and a conceptual design of a preferred option.

When the project is complete, the restoration will reconnect floodplain and side channel habitat and help reduce erosion, which is damaging salmon habitat. The river is used by chum salmon and steelhead trout, both listed as threatened with extinction under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group will use a $609,198 grant to buy and conserve up to 30 acres of wetlands in the Union River estuary in Belfair.

The Union River watershed is surrounded by major roads and residential developments and human-built barriers that have led to the loss of wetlands. The purchase will expand the state Department of Fish and Wildlife's Union Wildlife area to 700 acres of protected estuary, freshwater wetlands and forested floodplain. Juvenile Hood Canal summer chum salmon, a species listed as threatened with extinction under the federal Endangered Species Act, rely on the sub-estuary and the complex shallow channels found there.

The Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group will use a $557,669 grant to buy almost 11 acres on the right bank of the Tahuya River at White Owl reach that includes residential structures, outbuildings and bank armoring. The enhancement group will create a preliminary design to remove armoring and investigate the effect on neighboring land to determine whether additional land purchases or easements will be needed.

The purchase of the land along with the removal of bank armoring and restoration and planting of the riverbank, will protect and restore the river and allow it to access its historic floodplain and channel migration zone in this reach. In turn, this will increase the areas where sediment can deposit instead of on spawning gravel downstream. The river is used by chum and steelhead trout, species listed as threatened and by coho salmon, which is a "federal species of concern."

The Mason Conservation District will use a $168,300 grant to restore the banks of Cranberry, Deer, Goldsborough and Mill creeks. The conservation district will plant 6 acres along the creeks, maintain 20 acres, treat knotwood on 4 acres, and restore more than a mile of streams.

Knotwood is a highly invasive plant that displaces native plants, accelerates bank erosion, and degrades salmon spawning habitat by clogging the stream. Replanting the creek banks with native plants will shade the water, keeping it cool for fish.

The plants also drop branches and leaves into the water, where it can smother fish spawning gravel. The creeks are used by steelhead and by coho salmon, which is a federal species of concern, and by chum.

The South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group will use an $18,084 grant to complete a preliminary design for a project that will replace a wooden fish ladder with a fish-passable structure and a stream channel at a private road crossing on a tributary to Mill Creek. Correction of the fish passage barrier will result in opening fish passage to this system for the first time in several decades.

The tributary is used by steelhead trout, coho, chum and cutthroat trout.

The South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group will also use a $100,744 grant to plant salt marsh plants in the west and south lobes of west Oakland Bay. The group will buy native salt marsh plants, collect and sow seeds, establish nurse-beds, plant plugs or transplants, install geese exclusion fencing, and other related tasks. Oakland Bay is used by Chinook, chum and coho salmon, and steelhead trout.

Oakland Bay is also the focus of a $5,310,000 grant to the Squaxin Island Tribe to complete the restoration of the north salt marsh lobe on west Oakland Bay. The tribe will remove a quarter-mile of bulkhead and plant salt grass and salt marsh plants on 17 acres of salt marsh to promote the growth of intertidal vegetation.