FY2020 Nooksack Tribe Priority Project Implementation

This project will support construction of priority Nooksack chinook habitat restoration projects. In particular, this project is expected to contribute all or part of the required 15% match for a project or projects funded by the Salmon Recovery Funding Board. Specific projects will be contingent upon funding availability and need, but the anticipated worksite is:

• SF Nooksack Fish Camp Reach Restoration. Restoration will restore instream habitat in the South Fork Nooksack River, in a portion of the Fish Camp Reach (RM 7.3-9.6), near Acme in Whatcom County, to address South Fork Nooksack chinook limiting factors of high temperatures and low habitat diversity. Preliminary design is in development, and costs and total number of structures to be constructed are rough estimates. We anticipate seeking around $860,574 in WA State Salmon Recovery Funding Board funding (to provide 85% of project cost) including Puget Sound Acquisition and Restoration funding); PCSRF FY20 funding would contribute the remaining 15% of project costs. If funded with PCSRF funding to the Salmon Recovery Funding Board, the Nooksack Tribe, RCO, and NWIFC will have dialogue to ensure that treatment metrics are not duplicated. Initially, NWIFC reporting will only propose 15% of total project metrics.



**NOTE: In July 2022, we made the decision to allocate this funding to a different worksite: SF Homesteader Reach Restoration, since it was clear that costs would substantially exceed preliminary cost estimates.

• SF Nooksack Homesteader Reach Restoration. Restoration will restore instream habitat in the South Fork Nooksack River, in a portion of the Fish Camp Reach (RM 5.4-6.5), downstream of Acme in Whatcom County, to address South Fork Nooksack chinook limiting factors of high temperatures and low habitat diversity. Most of the $3.675M funding for the project is being contributed by RCO Grants #21-1132 ($643,103 Salmon State funding) and #22-1358 ($413,295 Salmon State Funding, $1,150000 NOAA PST Orca funding). PCSRF funding is providing $707,421 (FY19 - $166,758; FY20 - $132,020; FY21 - $141,793; FY22 - $266,850). Metrics have been scaled to proportional contribution of PCSRF FY20 funding to total project funding.

South Fork Nooksack early chinook are essential for ESU recovery, but wild abundances and productivity are critically low. Restoring instream habitat in the South Fork Nooksack River through the construction of historic-scale engineered log jams is an important strategy to improve abundance and productivity in the near term.



The primary goal of restoration in the SF Nooksack Fish Camp Reach is to improve habitat conditions to address early chinook limiting factors of high temperatures, low habitat diversity, and lack of key habitat by restoring habitat conditions and addressing the root causes of habitat degradation, namely the lack of large stable log jams that form and maintain complex pool habitat. Restoration is designed to benefit Nooksack early chinook holding and rearing survival by restoring deep complex pools that can function as refuges from high temperatures and improve juvenile rearing productivity; there will be collateral benefits to other species that use the reach (steelhead, bull trout, coho, chum, sockeye, pink, cutthroat trout). The objective of the project is to place engineered log jams in order to form deep primary pools with complex cover. This project is expected to lead to measurable improvement in the following habitat viability and project effectiveness indicators (Nooksack Chinook Monitoring and Adaptive Management Framework): pool frequency, natural and woody edge habitat length, number of stable log jams, and low and high flow cover.