Chiwawa, Nason Creek projects awarded $573,267

LEAVENWORTH — Two Upper Valley projects will receive a combined $573,267 in state salmon recovery grants for habitat work along the Chiwawa River and Nason Creek.

Chelan County was awarded $499,113 to improve habitat along approximately 0.6 mile of the lower Chiwawa River. The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation received $74,154 for stormwater systems connected to the planned realignment of State Route 207 near Lake Wenatchee.

The Washington State Salmon Recovery Funding Board announced the awards Sept. 16. The two projects account for most of the $965,117 awarded in Chelan County and were among 75 projects receiving $21.5 million statewide.

The Chiwawa project will create a side channel nearly one-quarter mile long and add logjams to reconnect floodplain habitat and protect a cold-water tributary. Work also will reduce dispersed camping directly along the stream bank.

“These grants are for projects to give salmon the clean, cold and plentiful water they need to survive,” board Chair Jeff Breckel said. “We’re moving rivers, adding logs to streams to slow the water and create habitat and removing barriers so salmon can swim to the ocean and back.”

The Yakama Nation will begin building systems to clean roadway runoff before it reaches Nason Creek and its floodplain. In related work, the Washington State Department of Transportation plans to move 0.65 mile of SR 207 out of the floodplain, where the highway erodes into the creek and creates damage and traffic problems.

Moving the highway is expected to reopen nearly 15 acres of historic side channels and floodplain habitat disconnected by highway construction in the early 1940s. The Yakama Nation will work with WSDOT and the U.S. Forest Service to restore those areas.

Both waterways provide habitat for federally protected Chinook salmon, steelhead and bull trout.

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media