Big Money For Local Salmon Recovery

DAYTON - When Columbia and Walla Walla counties receive $1.8 million in grants already approved this year to fix damaged rivers and streams, replace failing culverts and replant riverbanks with the goal of helping bring local salmon populations from the brink of extinction, Steve Martin will breathe a sigh of relief.

Since 2006 the Snake River Salmon Recovery Board, headquartered in Dayton, has counted on that budget to fund projects within the entire southeast corner of the state including the Snake, Grande Ronde, Tucannon, Touchet, and Walla Walla watersheds, to name but a few.

"We're quite fortunate in this economic climate to con- tinue to receive funding as we do for salmon recovery," said Martin, recovery board director.

With a federally promised $1.8 million budget in mind, Martin and his staff at the recovery board have been able to go ahead with project planning. And news arrived just last week that projects presented to the state Salmon Recovery Funding Board were approved.

An added bonus to these projects locally, Martin said, is that they will put people to work. This sentiment was reiterated by the funding board itself.

"Salmon are an important part of Washington's economy and culture. These grants will do two things," said Steve Tharinger, chairman of the Salmon Recovery Funding Board. "They will help put people to work improving our environment, and they will help us protect and restore salmon populations important to communities across Washington."

In Columbia County, $460,000 will be spent to reconnect 130 acres of floodplain along about four miles of the Tucannon River. About $220,000 will be used to assess, identify and prioritize habitat restoration projects within a 10-mile reach of the Tucannon River. Close to $200,000 will go into assessing the diversity of habitat in three areas along the Tucannon and placing large wood structures in the river and on the floodplain.

In addition, over $150,000 will go into conservation easements to protect 132 acres along south Patit Creek and 15 acres on the Touchet River, five miles west of Dayton.

In Walla Walla County, $279,000 will be spent to create a conservation easement along 140 acres of the Touchet River south of Prescott. Other money will be go into projects on Mill Creek and the Walla Walla River.

Columbia and Garfield counties, under the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, will have culverts repaired on Pataha Creek, a tributary of the Tucannon River, that are currently blocking fish passage.

Local watershed groups, like the Snake River Salmon Recovery Board, develop projects based on regional recovery plans, which are approved by the federal government. Individual projects are reviewed by regional recovery organizations and the state's technical review panel to make sure each project will help recover salmon in the most cost-effective manner.