The Yakima Basin Fish and Wildlife Recovery Board (Recovery Board) is pleased to announce that the state’s Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SRFB) has approved the $12,493,687 project list submitted by the Recovery Board for fish habitat protection and restoration projects in the Yakima Basin. $3,527,420 of these projects will be funded immediately, while another $8,966,267await approval by the state legislature. These 13 projects are a big step forward in our ongoing work to ensure salmon, steelhead, and bull trout all can thrive in the Yakima Basin!
The SRFB has awarded grants for salmon recovery every year since 1999, and this was the biggest year to date, with two additional funding programs: one for large projects between $1-5 million and another focused on restoration of riparian areas (the land adjacent to rivers).
“The extra funding programs this year allowed us to make big, targeted investments in the future of our watershed,” said Alex Conley, Recovery Board Executive Director. “They also allowed us to fund many more riparian projects than we could have funded in a normal grant round, supporting this crucial work.”
The local grant review process is coordinated by the Recovery Board, which serves as the “Lead Entity” for the Yakima Basin. Lead Entities are community-based salmon recovery organizations working across the state of Washington to protect and restore fish species listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).
While each of the 25 Lead Entities operate somewhat differently, they all partner with community leaders and technical experts to review project proposals. These volunteers serve on committees and offer their combined local knowledge to evaluate projects based on both scientific merit and socio-economic considerations.
In the Yakima Basin, our technical review committee brings local experts together to evaluate and prioritize projects based on how well they implement the Recovery Board’s regional recovery plans for steelhead and bull trout, species which are listed as threatened under the ESA. Our citizen committee is set up to have equal representation from all three of the Basin’s counties (Benton, Kittitas, and Yakima) and the Yakama Nation.
“Our volunteer committees are really how we put our values that salmon recovery should be a bottom-up, community-led process into practice,” said Cheyne Mayer, Recovery Board Lead Entity Coordinator. “It’s their funding recommendations that we send to the state SRFB, and the state almost always approves them as submitted. The process is really honoring of local knowledge and priorities.”
This year, $4.7M was awarded to 5 projects in Kittitas County and $7.8M was awarded to 8 projects in Yakima County, including $5.2M for4 projects on the Yakama Nation Reservation. Projects will restore in-stream and streambank habitat (8 projects), acquire property for restoration (1project), and develop designs for future projects (4 projects).
To learn more, the full project list can be found at the Recovery Board website at https://ybfwrb.org/grant-program/annual-project-summary/2024-srfb-process/,including links to in-depth project descriptions on the state’s PRISM database.