Sedro Woolley

EPA grants $2 million to tribes for Puget Sound projects

NWIFC Chairman Billy Frank Jr. and Executive Director Mike Grayum discuss the Hansen Creek restoration project with Lauren Rich, environmental planner for the Upper Skagit TribeA number of news outlets reported on this week’s announcement of $2 million in EPA grants to tribes in support of the Puget Sound Partnership.

KING 5 News:

More than a century ago, Native American tribes watched settlers dam, dike and straighten the area’s streams and rivers.

Today the federal EPA gave those same tribes millions of dollars to undo some of those changes.

During a ceremony at a 140-acre site near the Upper Skagit Indian Reservation near Sedro-Woolley, the EPA handed over $2 million to 19 tribes to fund several restoration projects. The money will be used at that site to remove dikes and other obstacles from Hansen Creek, a major tributary of the Skagit River.

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SVH: Restoration project best for coho, Skagit

The Skagit Valley Herald commended a recent project on the Upper Skagit Reservation, which brought coho salmon to tribal land for the first time in 50 years:

You’ve got to give the coho salmon high marks for persistence. For 50 years, coho had been trying to fight their way back to spawning grounds on the Upper Skagit Reservation. And for 50 years, man-made obstacles and sediment deposits blocked their way. Still they came.

Now, a restoration project on Red Creek, north of Sedro-Woolley, has made it possible for the coho to spawn again on the reservation.

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