Salmon Plan Implementation
Chinook Salmon Conservation Plan
In 2005, after nearly five years of collaboration among citizens, scientists, community groups, businesses, environmental groups, public agencies and elected officials, 27 local governments ratified the Lake Washington/Cedar/Sammamish Watershed (WRIA 8) Chinook Salmon Conservation Plan. This plan, together with other plans prepared throughout the Puget Sound region, became part of the official Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Plan approved by NOAA Fisheries Service in 2007.
The complex causes of salmon decline require wide-ranging solutions.
The Lake Washington/Cedar/Sammamish Watershed (WRIA 8) Chinook Salmon Conservation Plan contains over 1200 recommendations for protecting and restoring salmon habitat, from general land-use recommendations applicable throughout the watershed to small, site-specific habitat restoration projects. The highest-priority recommendations were gathered in Chapter 9 of the Plan to form the 10-year "Start List;" to focus efforts even further, WRIA 8 annually updates a "3-Year Work Plan" of the most immediately pressing projects. This 3-Year Work Plan is used to help recommend how to disburse the limited county, state and federal funds available for protection and restoration actions in the watershed.
WRIA 8 Plan Implementation
Local governments have been leading habitat protection and restoration efforts in the region since long before ratification of the chinook conservation plan. Between 1999 and 2005, at least 96 salmon recovery-related grant actions were completed in the watershed. In addition, many local governments are implementing habitat protection and restoration projects not specifically called for in the WRIA 8 Plan, yet benefitting salmon either directly or indirectly.
WRIA 8 is currently implementing the recommendations called for in the WRIA 8 Plan. Many of the actions being taken for salmon recovery are described in the 2008 WRIA 8 Implementation Progress Report, Salmon and People Living Together. The greatest number of chinook salmon in nearly four decades returned to WRIA 8 in 2007. WRIA 8 partner jurisdictions are actively engaged in sponsoring projects and programs to recover chinook salmon in the watershed. Freshwater habitat improvements, including opening several miles of the Cedar River above Landsburg Dam to salmon spawning and rearing, offer hope that chinook recovery can continue in the years to come. Read more details about the status of salmon recovery in the 2008 WRIA 8 Implementation Progress Report, Salmon and People Living Together.
Statewide Habitat Work Schedule web-based database. A new statewide database gathers detailed information about habitat restoration and protection projects to help track progress in recovering endangered salmon throughout Washington. The status of approximately 160 high-priority projects from the WRIA 8 Chinook Salmon Conservation Plan are accessible through a web-based portal.