Skokomish estuary restoration monitoring

In 2007 the Skokomish Tribe began breaking ground with a phased estuary restoration project. Since then almost 1000 acres have been reintroduced to tidal influence, which was restricted for hundreds of years. The objectives of this project are to restore salmon habitat to help revive the salmon population. In order to measure the success of the project at attaining these goals a monitoring plan was created. With funds provided by the Environmental Protection Agency the Tribe has been conducting estuary monitoring since 2011. Monitoring includes vegetation paired with pore-water salinity and sediment changes; tidal channel depth, temperature, and salinity; as well as fish presence, timing and abundance. The purpose of this presentation is to share with the scientific community what we have learned so far from this monitoring effort and the success of the Tribe’s estuary restoration project. In the Salish Sea we are experiencing a huge loss of salmon habitat. This estuary restoration project is successfully restoring a large amount of much needed quality salmon habitat. Our monitoring results show that native saltmarsh plants are dominate in the restoration area; salmon are utilizing the habitat; sediment is accreting (which could help offset the impacts of sea level rise) and even though we have had eight of the top ten historic Skokomish river crests over the last three years the flooding impacts to the surrounding community have been greatly reduced