Wahkiakum land part of large scale salmon habitat restoration plan

Pockets of land in Wahkiakum County are part of large scale state and federal plans to improve salmon habitat in the lower Columbia River Basin.

The State of Washington, US Army Corps of Engineers, US Bureau of Reclamation and Bonneville Power Administration last Friday proposed an agreement that would direct $40.5 million to protect and restore estuary habitat through 2018.

Bonneville is seeking public comment on the proposed agreement and has set a May 4 deadline.

The agreement would fund habitat projects designed to improve survival of salmon and steelhead around the estuary.

The money would be added over the next nine years to the $108.9 million in dam mitigation funds already pledged for estuary restoration.

In a previously planned project, Columbia Land Trust, a private, non-profit organization which already has habitat projects underway in the Grays River Valley, announced Monday it is purchasing 305 acres around Grays River tributary Crazy Johnson Creek. The area is the center of chum salmon spawning grounds in the Grays.

The land trust was able to use money from the Washington Salmon Recovery Board and from Bonneville to make the purchase from Hancock Forest Management.

Land acquisitions by the land trust have raised concerns among Valley residents, and Westend Commissioner Blair Brady expressed some of those at Tuesday's meeting of the Wahkiakum County board of commissioners.

"I'm concerned that they acquire land with public money and the land comes off the tax rolls," he said. The land probably wouldn't be logged, he said, which cuts revenue to public agencies.

Commissioner Dan Cothren commented that Crazy Johnson Creek lies in steep terrain that would make logging very difficult, and also that there is no open access to the land.

"From seeing and knowing what's going on, this is a win-win situation," Cothren said.

Commissioner Lisa Marsyla noted that the land trust has pledged to pay the equivalent of property tax on the lands in Wahkiakum County.

According to information from Bonneville, the agreement would almost double the $49.5 million the federal agencies had already dedicated to estuary habitat over the 10-year course of the 2008 Biological Opinion for the Columbia River hydropower system.

The agreement takes advantage of Corps cost-sharing programs for habitat improvements. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife will apply BPA funds, provided by ratepayers, to leverage matching federal appropriations, which the Corps will seek from Congress.

The agencies list 21 new projects, including two in Wahkiakum County:

--Elochoman Tidal Restoration: Restoration on protected wetlands, potentially including culvert and tidegate removal and road abandonment. Fall chinook and chum would gain rearing habitat in sloughs and wetlands. Spring chinook, coho and steelhead would gain deeper, main-channel estuarine habitats, and

--Pile Dike Removal: Remove pile dike structures in various locations throughout the Columbia River estuary, increasing access to side channel and wetland habitat. Provides increased access to rearing habitat by fall chinook and chum. Spring chinook, coho and steelhead gain access to deeper main-channel habitat.

The proposed agreement, public comment guidelines and an interactive project map are available at http://www.salmonrecovery.gov. Bonneville invites public comment on any associated environmental effects. The comment period closes at 5 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time on May 4.