Salmon funds approved for ongoing Skokomish restoration


SKOKOMISH — Allowing juvenile salmon to grow up a little more before venturing into the dangerous ocean is the goal of a new $1.5 million restoration project in the Skokomish River estuary.

The work will restore at least 17 tidal channels in the river’s delta, along with filling a bunch of old gravel pits that tend to disrupt salmon migration, according to Rich Geiger, engineer for Mason Conservation District.

The project, approved for $464,000 in state funds, was endorsed by the Salmon Recovery Funding Board, along with 27 other Puget Sound projects that will receive a total of $25 million.

To plan the latest restoration, Geiger and his associates examined aerial photos taken in 1938, before dikes and roads blocked connections between the massive estuarine marsh and the open waters of Hood Canal.

“What we saw,” Geiger said, “were intertidal channels going everywhere and connecting to an extremely large freshwater wetland complex. Access by fish was later cut off to various types of habitat, either by lack of stream crossings or by undersized stream crossings.”

Work next year will install 10 new culverts on Tacoma’s power line road and seven culverts on Skokomish Flats Road, both running parallel to the shoreline and blocking tidal flow. The new culverts will create new tidal channels where the old photographs said they should be.

Geiger believes that allowing fingerlike tidal channels to reach up into the wetlands will do wonders for all varieties of young salmon, since that is what experts have observed — and measured — following a .... http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/local-news...ration_81285328
_________________________
I fish, ergo, I am.

If you must burn our flag, Please! wrap yourself in it.
Puget Sound Anglers, So. King Co.
CCA SeaTac Chapter

I love my country but fear my government