The Washington Salmon Recovery Funding Board and the Puget Sound Partnership today announced the award of more than $42 million in grants to organizations around the state for projects that restore and protect salmon habitat, helping bring salmon back from the brink of extinction.
Three projects were approved for San Juan County, totaling $648,602.
The Northwest Straits Marine Conservation Foundation received $328,853 to remove a fish passage barrier on West Beach Creek on Orcas. The foundation will drain an impounded pond, remove a driveway, and install a culvert to allow fish access to more than one mile of habitat. It will also replant the creek banks.
The creek is used by Chinook salmon, which are listed as threatened with extinction under the federal Endangered Species Act, and pink, coho, and chum salmon, and cutthroat trout. The Northwest Straits Marine Conservation Foundation will contribute $59,504 from another grant and donations of cash and labor.
Friends of the San Juans was given $82,943 to develop restoration projects in San Juan County. The Friends will cultivate projects through site visits, feasibility studies, and conceptual designs; remove shoreline debris along three shoreline roads with San Juan County Public Works Department; and develop conceptual designs with the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission for two projects on Sucia Island. The Friends will contribute $14,637 in donations of cash and labor.
Long Live the Kings was awarded $236,806 to study ocean survival of chinook salmon in the San Juans. It will evaluate what limits survival of salmon in the San Juans and identify their critical periods of growth and associated habitats and determine whether temperature, food supply, or competition are the primary factors limiting the growth of Puget Sound Chinook salmon, which are listed as threatened with extinction under the federal Endangered Species Act. Long Live the Kings will contribute $47,610 in donations of equipment and labor.
“Salmon are an important part of both Washington’s culture and economy,” said Gov. Jay Inslee. “Healthy salmon populations support thousands of jobs in fishing, hotels and restaurants, seafood processing, boat sales and repair, charter operations, environmental restoration and more. I am very pleased with the work of the Salmon Recovery Funding Board and its efforts to fund projects that help our economy and assure future generations of Washingtonians can enjoy the return of wild salmon.”
Projects are selected by “lead entities,” which are local consortiums that include tribes, local governments, nonprofits and citizens who work together to recruit and review project proposals. Then regional salmon recovery organizations and the Salmon Recovery Funding Board review each project.
In other salmon news, the Reid Harbor Conservation Easement Acquisition via the San Juan Preservation Trust was funded $800,000 in what is known as “early action” and may even be completed by the end of this year. The preservation trust will use this grant to conserve 61 acres, including nearly three-quarters of a mile of shoreline in Reid Harbor on Stuart Island for endangered Chinook salmon and other fish, including chum and pink salmon, surf smelt, Pacific sandlance, and Pacific herring. The trust will buy a voluntary land preservation agreement that will protect the land permanently and prevent development of an additional 10 homes. The trust will contribute $250,000 in funding and donated property interest.
‘SalmonAtion’ event on Lopez
New insights about the islands’ marine food webs and “forage fish” will be shared at Kwiáht’s fifth annual SalmonAtion celebration on Jan. 18 at Lopez Center, beginning at 5:30 p.m. Admission is free.
In addition to savory snacks from Vita’s and wines from Lopez Island Vineyards, the event will include Chicken Biscuit’s premiere of a salmon song by Gretchen Wing, and an installation of seashore paintings by Mike Rust.
Kwiáht’s local volunteers were able to measure and lavage more than 500 juvenile Chinook with a survival rate of over 99 percent. Salmon were also screened for respiratory distress, a sign of ichthyophoniasis, an emerging fungal disease of fish, and for viral hemorrhagic septicemia. Special attention was paid to Pacific Sandlance, the skinny silvery gold fish that make up 80 percent of the diet of juvenile salmon and diving seabirds.
