A salmon habitat restoration project at the Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge recently reached a significant milestone when it was awarded a $4.6 million state grant.
“We’re just really thrilled. The decisions legislators make are really hard, especially these days,” said Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership Executive Director Debrah Marriott. “We’re grateful and very excited to get the amount we needed to make the project move forward.”
The grant from the Washington state Department of Ecology Floodplains by Design program will finance work to elevate part of state Highway 14 to the Columbia River’s 500-year flood level. It will also allow planting, the installation of woody debris and some culvert work.
The money is part of the nearly $22 million Steigerwald Habitat Restoration and Flood Control Project, which is still in the design phase. Construction is expected to begin in 2019.
The majority of the project is being funded by the Bonneville Power Administration. The goal is to reconnect more than 900 acres of floodplains to the Columbia River, and thus reestablishing salmon and steelhead habitat that’s been essentially closed off since the 1960s. Project proponents say it will restore the natural movement of water in and out of the floodplains while also providing flood protections to the Port of Camas-Washougal, landowners, the city of Washougal’s wastewater treatment plant and Highway 14.
The project is a collaboration between the Partnership, the Port of Camas-Washougal, Bonneville Power Administration, Friends of the Columbia Gorge and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, among others.
Work is slated to include the breeching of the levee along the Columbia River, construction of two new levees at the refuge’s east and west ends, removal of the Gibbons Creek canal and a diversion structure, culvert and a road removal, wetlands expansion and native plant placement, as well as the rerouting of nature trails.
The state grant will pay for elements of the project that BPA money doesn’t cover but contributes to the larger goal of improving the refuge and benefitting regional stakeholders. The grant itself came months late because the state Legislature failed to pass the $4 billion capital budget before adjourning last summer.
Floodplains by Design is administered by Ecology and the Nature Conservancy with the goal of better managing floodplains for farms, fish habitat and communities.
