Building Cross Jurisdictional Partnerships to Restore Habitat Processes to the Railroad Impounded Nearshore of Puget Sound/Snohomish County

Presentation Abstract

The BNSF Railway corridor of Puget Sound has long been considered one of the greatest challenges to nearshore habitat restoration and enhancement. Attempts at regional scale solutions have not been successful to date, but progress has been made working with the railroad at a project-specific scale. This presentation will highlight two project examples in Snohomish County to share our experiences for working effectively with BNSF and provide recommendations for expanding restoration collaborations with the railroad. In addition, we will describe an effort to tackle the issues at a larger, programmatic scale. The Snohomish County Marine Resources Committee (MRC) is partnering with NOAA Fisheries to provide two products for a Programmatic Biological Opinion for BNSF. The first product is a list of prioritized culverts along the nearshore corridor that could be restored data from the 2013 Beamer et al. study on Juvenile Chinook in small non-natal streams into the Whidbey Basin along with GIS layers to align with BNSF maintenance and repair schedule. Secondly, the MRC will provide a list of potential beach nourishment locations to place landslide materials in the nearshore as a way to restore the loss of feeder bluff material in nearshore drift cells. This project will serve as a pilot project to provide a clear and concise ranked project list that wouldn’t be done without this partnership and will benefit salmon recovery for years to come. It is the responsibility of the government agencies and the environmental community to create a clear and concise request of the railroad prioritized based on sound science.

Session Title

Bulkhead Removal - Putting goals into practice

Conference Track

Shorelines

Conference Name

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (2016 : Vancouver, B.C.)

Document Type

Event

Start Date

2016 12:00 AM

End Date

2016 12:00 AM

Location

2016SSEC

Type of Presentation

Oral

Genre/Form

conference proceedings; presentations (communicative events)

Contributing Repository

Digital content made available by University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.

Subjects – Topical (LCSH)

Wildlife conservation--Washington (State)--Puget Sound; Wildlife habitat improvement--Washington (State)--Puget Sound; Railroads--Washington (State)--Puget Sound

Geographic Coverage

Salish Sea (B.C. and Wash.); Puget Sound (Wash.)

Rights

This resource is displayed for educational purposes only and may be subject to U.S. and international copyright laws. For more information about rights or obtaining copies of this resource, please contact University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225-9103, USA (360-650-7534; heritage.resources@wwu.edu) and refer to the collection name and identifier. Any materials cited must be attributed to the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference Records, University Archives, Heritage Resources, Western Libraries, Western Washington University.

Type

Text

Language

English

Format

application/pdf

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Jan 1st, 12:00 AM Jan 1st, 12:00 AM

Building Cross Jurisdictional Partnerships to Restore Habitat Processes to the Railroad Impounded Nearshore of Puget Sound/Snohomish County

2016SSEC

The BNSF Railway corridor of Puget Sound has long been considered one of the greatest challenges to nearshore habitat restoration and enhancement. Attempts at regional scale solutions have not been successful to date, but progress has been made working with the railroad at a project-specific scale. This presentation will highlight two project examples in Snohomish County to share our experiences for working effectively with BNSF and provide recommendations for expanding restoration collaborations with the railroad. In addition, we will describe an effort to tackle the issues at a larger, programmatic scale. The Snohomish County Marine Resources Committee (MRC) is partnering with NOAA Fisheries to provide two products for a Programmatic Biological Opinion for BNSF. The first product is a list of prioritized culverts along the nearshore corridor that could be restored data from the 2013 Beamer et al. study on Juvenile Chinook in small non-natal streams into the Whidbey Basin along with GIS layers to align with BNSF maintenance and repair schedule. Secondly, the MRC will provide a list of potential beach nourishment locations to place landslide materials in the nearshore as a way to restore the loss of feeder bluff material in nearshore drift cells. This project will serve as a pilot project to provide a clear and concise ranked project list that wouldn’t be done without this partnership and will benefit salmon recovery for years to come. It is the responsibility of the government agencies and the environmental community to create a clear and concise request of the railroad prioritized based on sound science.