2022 and 23 Tulalip Snohomish Basin Fish Passage Barrier Removal

The Tulalip Tribes is actively engaged in Fish Passage Barrier remediation throughout the Snohomish River Basin including habitat improvements and remediation of culverts, dams, and fishways listed as fish passage barriers. The purpose of this project is to support engineering and design costs for pre-construction project planning and engineering to advance currently known fish passage barrier removal projects located throughout the Snohomish Basin including Williams Creek 1 and 2, Coho Creek, and Peoples Creek, Culvert corrections and other fish passage barrier remediation measures have been identified as a high priority action for salmon recovery in the Snohomish Basin and barrier corrections have shown a direct contribution to increasing salmon population abundance (Snohomish Conservation Plan, 2005). These funds are intended to support planning actions and associated employee billable hours to coordinate projects, and allocate funds for consultants to produce engineering and design plans for a number of fish passage barrier removal projects currently in the scoping phase by the Tulalip Restoration, Acquisition, and Stewardship team.

Tulalip is currently in scoping and design phases on more than twelve (12) known partial and full fish passage barrier structures and has received landowner amenability and written landowner willingness in each of the six (6) following distinct locations including Williams Creek 1 and 2, Coho Creek, and Peoples Creek. The goal of this project will be to contribute in producing final designs for as many as four (4) of these known fish passage barriers located in the Snohomish Basin. The total number of designs produced will depend upon contractual expenditure costs for each design phase advancement, and funds will be maximized to achieve the highest potential project benefit yield. Tulalip has secured landowner willingness in each of these 6 locations and has in-hand signed landowner acknowledgement forms for each proposed project location. Tulalip is in the process of seeking implementation funding through various funding sources and anticipate receiving additional implementation funding to further advance these projects. As documented in the Snohomish River Basin Salmon Conservation Plan (2005) Fish passage barrier removal has been identified as a high priority action in the Snohomish River Basin and these projects would have a significant benefit to salmon access and spawning use in these Snohomish River tributary streams. The goal of the barrier remediations identified herein is to provide continuity throughout salmon spawning reaches, provide access to spawning adults and juvenile salmon, and promote highly functioning natural processes within the riparian corridor. The proposed projects will help increase resiliency for salmon stocks in the basin in the face of continued stressors including but not limited to declining habitat condition and availability, and global climate change. The preferred alternative to existing fish passage barriers will be abandonment of the structure where feasible, or replacement with a full span structure such as a weathering steel bridge, or pre-cast concrete bridge or box culvert that will not impede fish passage and will contribute to high functioning natural processes in spawning and rearing reaches. This restoration action will benefit Chinook, Coho, Chum, and Pink Salmon, as well as Steelhead, migratory Cutthroat, and Bull Trout species. In total the impact of these restoration projects once implemented has the potential to open over 16 miles of habitat to salmonid utilization. This habitat will provide spawning substrates for returning adults as well as rearing habitats for young of year emergent fry and over-summering salmon smolts. Following the completion of this funding cycle, compliance monitoring will be undertaken to assess the overall effectiveness of the fund allocation in contributing to significant plan development for fish passage barrier removals in the Snohomish Basin as identified in this work plan.





All structures currently being scoped for replacement are culvert crossing structures. The totality of this funding award ($100,000) will be spent on salaries (24%), indirect (~5%) and contractual expenditures (71%) associated with producing engineering and construction design plans. This will advance several known fish passage barrier projects through the design phase and prepare them for construction as additional funding becomes available. The total intrinsic habitat potential available should each of these projects advance through implementation phases in the future is approximately 16.81 miles of spawning and rearing habitat.