Working on the railroad: coastal streams prioritization to inform restoration planning

Puget Sound’s nearshore has been substantially modified since the Industrial Revolution with extensive infrastructure developed along the shoreline. In Washington State, the BNSF railroad right-of-way runs along 52 miles of the shoreline, while another 73 miles of railroad is within 200 feet of the shoreline. In many places, the railroad forms a barrier between the coastal watershed and the shoreline preventing the delivery of water, sediment, wood and organic matter into the nearshore. This creates ongoing degradation of habitat quality in the nearshore, including small estuaries and coastal embayments, which provide important habitat to juvenile Chinook salmon. In addition, the modifications associated with the railroad also limit juvenile salmon movements in estuaries, including juvenile chinook who are documented using the estuaries and freshwater habitats of non-natal streams. Nearshore restoration along the railroad is expensive and requires extensive planning. To maximize environmental benefits, restoration efforts should be focused on those areas that provide substantial benefits to fish habitat and nearshore processes. Confluence Environmental is leading a project to prioritize and evaluate coastal embayments and streams along the 125 miles of railroad-impacted shoreline. The project is synthesizing existing data, as well as identifying and filling data gaps for use in the prioritization. This prioritization will be integrated with a list of known railroad maintenance and upgrade needs. An advisory team is guiding the development of the prioritization to ensure it can support identified local and regional restoration outcomes. The outcome of the project will include a prioritized list of coastal embayments and streams to support strategic restoration choices and potential matching of upgrades and maintenance along the railroad to mitigation projects that will benefit fisheries and shoreline processes. The list will also enable independent funders to evaluate the benefits among restoration projects