FY2023 Expanding Nooksack Tribal Capacity to Advance Restoration

This project will help expand the pace, scale and scope of restoration and reconnection of salmon habitat for ESA-listed chinook, steelhead, and bull trout in the Nooksack watershed. Specifically, the project will fund Nooksack Tribe restoration staff to help plan, secure funding for, conduct landowner outreach and oversee design and implementation of restoration projects, including types of projects that current staff lack sufficient capacity to advance wetland restoration, riparian planting, fish passage restoration, and streamflow restoration. The project will also provide funding to hire a consultant to assess project feasibility and support project planning. The outcome of this project will be increased pace, scale, and breadth of restoration in the Nooksack River watershed relative to prior years, as evidenced by the number and geographic distribution of projects in development and design.

Chinook are limited by high channel instability, low habitat diversity, and the lack of stable spawning channels in the North and Middle Fork and high temperatures, low instream flows, low habitat diversity and lack of deep, complex holding pools. Instream, riparian, and hydrologic restoration in the North, Middle, and South Forks of the Nooksack River are critically important to improve Nooksack Early Chinook abundance and productivity. The urgency of habitat restoration is underscored by recent increases in Chinook pre-spawn mortalities in recent years, including in summer 2021, when over 2400 native Chinook died on the spawning grounds before they could spawn.