State money will help fish streams

Five stream improvement projects in Clark and Skamania counties will benefit from almost $1 million in state money, Gov. Chris Gregoire announced late last week.

The state Salmon Recovery Funding Board set aside $19.8 million statewide to improve stream habitat for imperiled salmon and steelhead. It is the ninth annual round of funding for the board, which was formed in 1999.

Southwest Washington projects include the following:

• Restoration of lower Hamilton Creek, $417,000: The nonprofit Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Group will use the money to install 16 engineered log jams and create a secondary channel in lower Hamilton Creek, which empties into the Columbia River at North Bonneville.
  
  Spawning chum salmon use the creek, one of the few spawning grounds for chum in the lower river.
  
  The enhancement group will contribute $75,000 in donations of equipment, labor and materials. The work will occur on property owned by the city of North Bonneville.
  
  
• Improving habitat near Daybreak Park, $199,602: Fish First, a local nonprofit organization, will use the grant to design a project improving salmon habitat just west of Daybreak Park on the East Fork of the Lewis River. Fish First will work with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board.
  
  
• Side channel enhancement on the North Fork of the Lewis River, $117,000: The Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Group will use the money for planning. The design will include a side channel, large woody material and rehabilitation of 500 feet of a Clark County tributary to the North Fork near Woodland.
  
  
• Eagle Island habitat projects along the North Fork of the Lewis River, $115,528: The 259-acre island, acquired by Clark County eight years ago as a refuge for fish and wildlife, is now threatened by invasive species, loss of side channels and sediment deposited in off-channel areas.
  
  The Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Group will use the grant to evaluate current conditions, build on previous studies and develop at least three high-priority projects. The island is just east of Woodland.
  
  
• Acquiring habitat along the East Fork of the Lewis River, $100,514: Columbia Land Trust, a nonprofit group based in Vancouver, will use the money to reimburse its own expenditure a year ago to buy 11.8 acres of high-quality habitat on the East Fork near Lewisville Park.
  
  Clark County commissioners last year contributed $300,000 to buy the property for $444,000 from Daybreak Homes Inc. of Battle Ground. The land trust contributed $100,000, and another $50,000 came from the East Fork Legacy Fund administered by the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington.
  
  The land trust expended its own money for the purchase while it simultaneously sought a Salmon Recovery Funding Board grant, said Susan Zemek, communications manager for the state Recreation and Conservation Office.
  
  “They can just move faster than government can,” she said. “Sometimes they seize the opportunity to purchase, knowing that funding is likely but not guaranteed. It’s a risk on the land trust’s part.”
  
  In this case, the risk paid off.
  
  

Since 2000, the Salmon Recovery Funding Board has awarded more than $345 million in grants to 1,115 projects.

The money comes from the federal Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund and from the state’s capital budget through the sale of bonds.