Recovery Plan Progress

The Region Focuses on Habitat Restoration

The coast region’s approach is to “protect the best and restore the rest” with the goal of preventing additional federal listings and reversing the declines in salmon and steelhead numbers. Overarching strategies developed for the Washington Coast Sustainable Salmon Plan include the following:

Educate and involve the community to protect and restore ecosystem values.

• The Strong Salmon Future outreach campaign increases community awareness and involvement in salmon habitat protection and restoration. The campaign goal is to increase social and financial support for salmon-related projects on Washington’s coast. Support from local landowners is needed to implement habitat protection and restoration on critical salmon streams. Support from elected officials is needed because habitat protection and restoration are an investment of public funds. The campaign includes educational signs at project sites, a business supporter program, field tours for elected officials, and media communications. “Salmon Minute” public service announcements air weekly on local radio stations.

Protect and restore salmon habitat function

• The region completed Developing Pilot Watershed Restoration Plans for the Washington Coast Region, a guide to the development of intensive, watershed-scale restoration. Stakeholder groups have launched pilot restoration efforts in the Calawah, Newaukum, Cloquallum, and Middle Nemah watersheds.
• More than four thousand human-made barriers block fish migration across the region. Stakeholder groups collaboratively developed priorities for fish barrier corrections in Olympic Peninsula, Chehalis River Basin, and Willapa Bay watersheds. This work identifies projects that have the highest fish benefits. The results continue to be updated as field data becomes available.
• Since 2000, the region has removed 2,074 fish barriers, including those removed through salmon restoration grants, Road Maintenance and Abandonment Plans, and state culvert corrections. The region also has restored fifty-seven miles of stream habitat, 2,422 acres of off-channel habitat, 9,109 acres of riparian (stream bank) habitat, and 3,441 acres of estuary habitat.

Support hatchery and harvest practices consistent with wild salmon sustainability.

• The region actively engages with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife on coastal steelhead management and Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor salmon management policies.

Use economic tools to protect, restore, and maintain ecological system values.

• The region completed a science review of Salmon Habitat Restoration and Ecosystem Services. Ecosystem services provide a broad view on how people benefit from investments in the protection and restoration of salmon habitat in the region. The white paper describes specific benefits provided by a healthy and restored watershed, including stream bank and upland habitat, floodplains, tributaries, and estuaries.

Improve regulatory effectiveness to achieve salmon sustainability.

• The Chehalis River is the only watershed in the region that has in-stream flow requirements to protect salmon. The Chehalis River Streamflow Restoration Plan was adopted formally by the Department of Ecology in 2021. The local stakeholder group identified more than seventy-four projects that will provide a net ecological benefit to the watershed and add 3,309 acre-feet of water back into the streams each year.

Background: Salmon recovery in Washington is driven by regional salmon recovery plans. The recovery plans provide the actions and rationale for where to invest and when. Each region reports on the actions implemented related to what is recommended in the regional recovery plan. The information about recovery plan implementation is grounded in the regional organizations’ extensive knowledge of recovery issues and recovery progress.