The Yakima County Dept. of Corrections (YCDOC) is currently providing tools, transportation and labor for riparian restoration work at priority stream sites and SRFB approved Salmon Recovery projects in Yakima County. Inmate crews provide dependable, low cost labor that is available year round to start, service and maintain projects located on the Yakima River and tributaries. Projects can also be located on the Naches, Cowiche, Wide Hollow, Wenas, Ahtanum Creek and other locations in the countys watershed. This request is to enhance service for those projects and to replace the current Salmon Recovery grant that runs out in April 2003. Project sponsors will need existing sites maintained past the 2003 grant funding cycles end. Sponsors also have projects that are being planned and applied for in this grant cycle. These future projects are intended to build on the existing projects that this department is already servicing. For example: provide labor to start a local native plant nursery which could supply 30,000 plants a year and expand the ability to plant in the fall; plants now are purchased from Bellevue. Fall planting ability would double the area serviced by crews each year. Inmate crews follow approved restoration plans and the project sponsors monitor all projects. Since 2001 YCDOC has provided 5,395 inmate labor hrs planted 390 plants, 7,382 trees and serviced 238 acres for riparian restoration. Crews have worked on 14 separate sites and have current plans to expand on those sites in the next year.
