Funding

Restoration Dominates Region’s Activities

This region spends most of its salmon recovery funding on habitat protection and restoration. For the past twenty years, about $1.7 million a year from the state’s Recreation and Conservation Office has been available to restore the 3.7 million acres of watershed in the region. More recently, the region has received a ten-fold increase in funding with an infusion of state capital funds from the Washington Coast Restoration and Resiliency Initiative, Brian Abbott Fish Barrier Removal Board, and the Chehalis Basin Strategy Aquatic Species and Restoration Plan. Federal funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law have launched large restoration projects such as culvert replacements across the Olympic Peninsula, Hoquiam Dam removal in the Chehalis River basin, and tidal restoration in Willapa Bay. These large, complex projects, informed by collaborative and strategic planning, previously were not possible because of limited funding.

Funding for other essential salmon recovery activities, especially status and trends monitoring, has not kept pace with the regional need.