Local salmon habitat restoration project receives $3 million grant

WASHINGTON – A Nason Creek salmon habitat restoration project recently received nearly $3 million in grant funding from the America the Beautiful Challenge (ATBC), a national initiative to support locally-led conservation and restoration projects. 

The Biden-Harris administration, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), and public and private-sector partners announced over $141 million in grants to support landscape-scale conservation projects across the United States through ATBC. 

Over $11 million went to projects across Washington state, the nearly $3 million of which went towards the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation for salmon habitat restoration in the Nason Creek Floodplain.

Nason Creek is a critical spawning and rearing stream for culturally and ecologically important spring Chinook salmon and steelhead for the Upper Columbia Basin. According to the grant summary, the project will remove just over a half mile-long segment of State Route 207 from the floodway, reconnect 13 acres of side channel and floodplain habitat, protect over half a mile of oxbow rearing habitat, and restore natural stream hydraulics and habitat complexity within a 1.4 mile-long creek segment.

The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation is one of many Tribal Nations that received the ATBC grants. 

“Approximately 40 percent of 2023 grants and funding will support projects implemented by Indigenous communities, representing an unprecedented level of funding dedicated to Tribally led projects for a single grant program at NFWF,” the Department of the Interior wrote in a press release.

Also in Washington state, The Coeur d’Alene Tribe and Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation both received funding for salmon habitat restoration in the Hangman Watershed (spanning Washington and Idaho) and The Túuši Wána Floodplain, respectively.

Additionally, Wild Salmon Center received funding for flood risk reduction in Olympic National Forest. Conservation Northwest received funding for its First Foods and Habitat Connectivity and Resilience project in Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. 

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife also received a $1 million grant to partner with tribes to sustainably manage recreation on Washington State public lands. 

In total, there were 74 grants spanning across 46 different states, 3 U.S. territories and 21 Tribal Nations. America the Beautiful is an initiative launched by the Biden-Harris Administration in 2021 to conserve 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.

Taylor Caldwell: 509-433-7276 or taylor@ward.media