Aquatic Species Restoration Program
2024 Progress
In summer of 2024, crews installed a series of 15 engineered log jams, a standard aquatic habitat restoration technique and critical component of broader restoration efforts on the lower Satsop River. These log jams encourage the river to restore pools for salmon to rest in as they travel through the Chehalis Basin. They also help slow erosion of valuable farmland.
Photo credit: Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW).
This 2024 progress update for the Chehalis Basin Strategy’s Aquatic Species Restoration Program highlights this year’s actions and activities to restore and protect aquatic species habitat in the Chehalis River basin.
Project Implementation: Progress and Accomplishments
River restoration in the Chehalis Basin is aimed at bringing back habitat-forming processes to the watershed, which restores habitat conditions and function to what salmon may have encountered historically. Our rivers in the Chehalis Basin no longer have wide bands of tall trees and other vegetation along all the banks to provide shade and fallen logs, structures to support bugs to eat, provide places to hide, and form deep pools to keep cool in the summers. Our projects restore river system processes and habitat conditions with the help of willing landowners. We place engineered log jams, use bio-engineering to restore eroding banks, broaden wetlands, and plant native vegetation.
Since 2015, the state has invested over $72 million on efforts to develop, design, and implement projects to benefit aquatic species throughout the Basin.
See how progress has been made in each county in the map below.
Since 2023, approximately $12.4 million dollars was distributed for restoration and protection projects.
The Aquatic Species Restoration Program’s prioritization and sequencing approach has guided over 90% of project funding to geographic areas that are near-term priorities. The plan has helped:
- Restore 15 miles of river and stream habitat
- Correct the highest priority barriers to fish passage
- Control invasive species and install native plantings along river banks
- Install and maintain ponds and support vegetation management in adjacent wetlands for Oregon spotted frog breeding and overwintering habitat
- Restore floodplain habitat, often providing additional benefits for communities
The ASRP’s full 30-year plan will require rapidly increasing investments while continuing to build project sponsor and contractor capacity to put projects on the ground through at least 2030.
In 2024, the ASRP Steering Committee recommended funding for several new projects that achieve:
- Invasive species monitoring and management on a watershed scale
- Watershed-level restoration strategy and prioritization
- Floodplain plantings and restoration design across more than 62 acres
- Large scale holistic restoration spanning more than seven high-priority stream miles
Chehalis Basin Strategy Budget 2023-2025
Aquatic Species Habitat Budget 2023-2025
Aquatic Species Restoration Projects Approved Since 2015
Want to learn more about projects shown here? Visit the Salmon Recovery Portal Map and filter projects by the tag for ASRP.
ASRP Project Feature: Riverbend Ranch Reach Scale Habitat Restoration
In 2024, over 50 large wood structures were installed along 2.5 miles of the Skookumchuck River in Thurston County to manage erosion on farmland and increase the habitat quality for migrating spring and fall Chinook, coho, chum, and steelhead. The project was sponsored by Thurston Conservation District and funded by the Office of Chehalis Basin and Chehalis Basin Board.
For conservation service providers like us, it was extremely valuable to have one program that could look comprehensively and holistically and flexibly to really customize and tailor the approach to the specific site and the specific goals of the operation and the needs of the landowner. There are not a lot of other programs that are out there that are like that, definitely not in this area. So this has been extremely valuable, and I hope this model is catching on across the state, so that we can work in a lot of other spaces to be just as collaborative and innovative with the people that are stewarding that landscape.
Photo credit: Anchor QEA
Photo credit: Anchor QEA
The ASRP’s Accelerated Project Approval Process
The program utilizes a process to fund projects quickly and on a rolling basis, streamlining administration and coordinating timely review to bolster basin-wide capacity and expedite funding decisions.
Locally-based Regional Implementation Teams ensure the projects proposed align with ASRP priorities.
The Technical Review Team reviews concepts and designs for technical merit at key stages throughout project development.
The Steering Committee ensures projects meet programmatic goals prior to recommending for approval.
Ecology’s Office of Chehalis Basin approves funding for smaller projects, reserving the attention of the Chehalis Basin Board for projects with a value greater than $500,000.
Science informs how projects are prioritized to ensure they provide the most benefits to focal species and their habitats.
The ASRP project approval process was refined in 2024 to promote more information sharing and improve project development strategies. These new processes mean many projects now under design will be ready to be built during the next five years.
Photo credit: Karl Veggerby
Program Development
Looking at the past, envisioning the future. Rennie Island, Grays Harbor, WA.
Photo credit: John Gaffney
Estuary Ecological Region
The ASRP organizes restoration and protection actions spatially by Ecological Regions (and smaller Geospatial Units within those Ecological Regions). Currently, implementation focuses on the near-term priority areas (first 10 years) to generate the greatest habitat and species uplift.
In 2024, a new Ecological Region, the Grays Harbor Estuary, was incorporated into the ASRP’s 30-year prioritized plan. All anadromous fish that enter and exit the Chehalis Basin pass through and utilize the estuary, which is a unique habitat for numerous aquatic species, and critical at multiple life stages.
Synthesizing and building on existing knowledge, Interim Near-Term Priority Areas and Actions within the Estuary Ecological Region were identified in 2024, and additional guidance was provided for project sponsors.
This guidance, combined with the formation of an estuary-focused collaborative working group, has jump-started the development of future habitat restoration and protection projects in the Chehalis River estuary.
Science, Monitoring, and Adaptive Management
The program’s Technical Advisory Group (TAG) supports the Steering Committee by conducting studies and research in the Basin, applying scientific findings from other basins and providing technical recommendations for consideration.
Scientific monitoring informs ASRP plan development and project implementation through adaptive management.
Each year, TAG members collect and review new information emerging both from our scientific monitoring studies and out-of-basin science (such as Intensively Monitored Watersheds). They provide recommendations for adaptive management to the Steering Committee through a process described in the ASRP Monitoring and Adaptive Management Plan (2021).
In 2024, a total of 12 monitoring studies reported progress toward learning objectives identified by the TAG as key to enhancing the plan and understanding the Chehalis Basin. Past reports and other scientific materials are available here.
Photo credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Photo credit: WDFW
Also in 2024, focus groups made up of both scientists and restoration practitioners assembled around topic areas in the Basin. This has brought monitoring efforts into closer coordination with restoration projects at multiple stages of development and implementation, resulting in better outcomes for aquatic species. With the science to support informed decision-making, the program continues to address complex challenges faced by aquatic species such as:
- Building awareness and understanding around headwater habitat needs and opportunities, including areas occupied by coastal tailed frog, a focal species
- Stream flow changes due to rapid climate change include both flooding and low flows. Both pose challenges for spring Chinook salmon in the Newaukum and Skookumchuck, where they spawn.
- Observed freshwater mussel declines and die-offs that continue to raise alarms about water quality and other habitat stressors
- The need for resilient habitats to support the Endangered Species Act-listed Oregon spotted frog
These studies investigate existing habitat conditions, track changes over time, and identify the best techniques for improving specific habitats.
Photo credit: WDFW
Community Involvement
Photo credit: Lewis Conservation District
Community involvement and community planning is central to the success of the program. Regional Implementation Teams led by in-basin conservation districts guide outreach to landowners and coordinate with project sponsors to identify project opportunities and align them with community needs.
ASRP and the Chehalis Basin Strategy
The Chehalis Basin Strategy represents an innovative, collaborative, and forward-looking network of partners tackling complex management actions and activities.
The ASRP continues to advance restoration projects that dovetail with other Chehalis Basin Strategy programs. Integration of elements across programs is already in action:
- The Chehalis Basin Strategy Report describes the integrated long-term plan to improve aquatic species and reduce flood damage, updated by this year’s Chehalis Basin Strategy 2024 Year in Review.
- The Erosion Management Program promotes the use of natural materials in bank protection to maintain and improve stream and riparian habitat while also slowing erosion.
- The Voluntary Acquisition Program workgroup that develops an acquisition framework to support projects reducing flood damages and improving habitat for aquatic species.
Photo credit: WDFW
Leveraging Federal Funding
The Aquatic Species Restoration Plan has more restoration opportunities than state resources available. To address this shortfall, OCB is bringing together ASRP Project Sponsors to help secure federal funding to advance ASRP goals. OCB is hiring a new Federal Funding Coordinator to assist in facilitation, planning, and grant writing on behalf of Sponsors. This position will coordinate with the ASRP to identify compatible projects for federal funding while also seeking opportunities to address the impacts of climate change through increased community resilience and flood damage reduction.
A Look Ahead: ASRP’s Critical Role in the Chehalis Basin
Photo credit: WDFW
Salmon runs in the Chehalis Basin have declined precipitously in recent years.
- Salmon habitat is reduced by as much as 80-87% from historical levels (i.e., early 1900s).
- Existing salmon populations are now less than 50% of their historical run sizes.
- Spring Chinook salmon, culturally significant to the Quinault Indian Nation and the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation as the first salmon species to return to the rivers in the spring, have been petitioned for Endangered Species Act listing and are estimated to be just 23% of the historical population in the Chehalis Basin.
If actions taken in the next 30 years are not adequate, Chehalis River spring Chinook could be lost entirely by 2080 or sooner, along with a significant portion of the economically vital steelhead trout runs.
Compounding this urgency, climate change is spurring more frequent flooding and droughts, streambank and bluff erosion, rising temperatures, sea level rise, and saltwater intrusion, all with potentially severe outcomes for salmon and other aquatic life.
While people, communities, and infrastructure, can adapt to the intensifying effects of climate change, fish and other aquatic species need more help to adapt to these impacts on the same time scale.
Restoration planning and ASRP program actions address these needs across the basin. But investments and actions must ramp up soon to keep pace with the 30-year plan for the basin and projected climate change impacts.
In 2025, more planning effort to support this strategic capacity building will focus on engagement with landowners and Chehalis Basin communities. Landowner input and cross-cutting support for projects will be key to ensuring program success, resiliency, and long-term stewardship.
Photo credit: WDFW