Fish Passage Improvement

As a group, we assessed over 1,000 culverts to determine barrier status. In June 2020, SRSC published a report detailing findings from the assessment work completed by USIT, SFEG, and the County. The full report can be found online here (pdf). This report made no effort to prioritize culvert replacement as each organization has their own charge, but it did provide an up-to-date list of known barriers, why they are barriers, how much habitat they block, the current condition of the culvert, and other features helpful in determining a replacement order. There were some limitations to the completion of this report. Most notably, the report did not include the Samish watershed, the Skagit estuary, Fidalgo Island and upstream of the Gorge Dam at Newhalem due to some complicating factors in those areas. Work is ongoing to evaluate culverts in those sectors and the report will be updated over time with this information and updated culvert assessments within the original geographic area.

This group identified 107 barrier culverts and 15 culverts with unknown barrier status that are directly under ownership of Skagit County.  There are numerous ways improvement of these culverts could be prioritized, and significant time could be spent trying to reach consensus among all our partners and stakeholders. With the immediate and critical situation involving our regional salmon stocks and the endangered Puget Sound Orca population, Skagit County plans to move forward and begin making positive progress. Skagit County has chosen to select culverts that have no known barriers downstream. When determining which culverts to prioritize from here, important factors included are percent passability, available habitat upstream, species use, culvert condition, and road maintenance needs.

Skagit County quickly became aware that working through the standard grant process would take an unacceptable amount of time to complete restoration of our key culverts. The County reached out to the legislature to request $1 million to fund design of key culverts within the County. The County provided matching dollars to complete a total of 11 culvert designs by December 2025. The intent is that these designs will be more competitive for construction grant funding, allowing replacement on a much shorter timeline.

The County has been awarded funding from the state legislature on two occasions, once in July 1, 2022 and again on October 3, 2023. We have identified eleven culverts, two within the Samish watershed and the remainder within the Skagit watershed (see map and table below). Design work is underway.

Skagit County is committed to protecting salmon through more than just culvert removal. Here are some more ways that we are trying to improve salmon habitat and population numbers:

• In partnership with Skagit Tribes and resource agencies, we are working hard to hold the City of Seattle accountable to install fish passage at its Skagit River hydroelectric dams, seeking to replicate the proven success that fish passage has created at most other dams in the Pacific Northwest.
• We are working with Skagit Tribes and resource agencies to coordinate major high-priority estuary restoration projects that will also improve infrastructure resilience and public safety.
• We’re working to protect and improve water quality standards for the Samish and Skagit system through our Clean Water Program, in cooperation with the State Department of Ecology.
• Our Voluntary Stewardship Program (VSP) helps acquire and plant riparian buffers along salmon-bearing streams that run through Skagit County farmland

Find projects that benefit fish on the Restoration Projects page and the Current Road Construction Projects page.