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
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.
