Well do you know others are starting to think like many of us. Good read.

Return focus to fish in culvert replacement

The Seattle Times

To hear Gov. Jay Inslee tell it, Washington officials are powerless to improve the state’s court-ordered multibilliondollar program replacing fish-blocking culverts.

“We’re stuck” in fulfilling conditions of a federal judge’s ruling, Inslee said in a recent interview.

Our hands are tied, he has effectively signaled.

That’s a cynical take. Here’s another way to look at it: State taxpayers are forking over nearly $8 billion on culvert replacement, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to restore salmon populations in local watersheds. The state should do everything in its power to get the most for that hefty investment.

Yet, Inslee and state leaders have resigned themselves to meeting U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Martinez’s order that focuses on some 430 barriers under state highways. Like a student pulling an all-nighter to prepare for an exam, the Washington State Department of Transportation is pushing projects as fast as possible to meet a 2030 deadline to reopen 90% of upstream habitat. The result has led to an exercise in tape-measuring — replacing culverts where the greatest length of habitat is opened, regardless of fish potential — that guides the program.

Breaching barriers and installing new bridges, as outlined in a recent Seattle Times investigation by Times reporter Mike Reicher, does little good for salmon in some locations because there are often additional challenges to fish, including other culverts downstream and upstream. Those impediments are often owned by cities, counties and other jurisdictions not subject to Martinez’s order. But they too have to be addressed for fish to migrate successfully in and out of local streams and waterways.

The state’s Transportation Department must do a better job to collaborate with those other culvert owners. In 2020, the Legislature ordered state agencies to coordinate a statewide strategy on culvert replacement. It has yet to be completed.

William Stelle, the former regional director of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries for the West Coast, calls WSDOT’s current culvert program “the squandering of a powerful opportunity to leverage enormous gains in habitat.” Stelle suggests convening the leaders

of salmon recovery efforts at all levels of government, including the tribes, and augmenting work with additional funds including recent contributions from the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. University of Washington researchers have even developed an app that prioritizes entire watersheds, rather than individual culverts, where funding can make the greatest environmental improvements.

Of 84 completed WSDOT projects, surveyors have so far found just 834 fish, with more than half of those projects finding none at all. The lawsuit tribes brought over culverts was because of harms those blockages cause to salmon. Shouldn’t growing those fish numbers then be the paramount goal of everyone — the state, environmentalists, tribes and even Judge Martinez himself?

At a minimum, Inslee’s administration should consult the tribes and contemplate approaching Martinez to ask the judge to reconsider the order, if they can forge a superior plan that would ultimately bring back more salmon.

The Times editorial board remains supportive of this bold public works effort. But there aren’t endless funds available for this work — and there will be less if residents tire of projects that don’t show fish gain. A fire hose of funding — about $1 million a day spent — should be aimed at where it will do the most for salmon populations.