Our Work

Overview

The ultimate goal of the Chehalis Basin Collaborative for Salmon Habitat is to help implement on-the-ground, community supported, salmon recovery projects in the Chehalis watershed.

We do this by developing, planning and prioritizing salmon restoration and preservation projects that follow the guidance of the Chehalis Basin Salmon Habitat Restoration and Preservation Strategy.

A primary role of the group is to help allocate state and federal salmon recovery (SRFB) funding. Because these grant monies are limited, a process is needed to identify the projects with the most benefits to salmon in the Chehalis system. The Chehalis Basin Collaborative for Salmon Habitat is responsible for running that process.

Salmon recovery projects benefit more than just salmon. They protect agricultural lands, provide flood protection, fix roads, bridges and other infrastructure, and create tourism and recreational opportunities. Because projects are managed at a local level, they help bring money into the local communities.

From 1999 to 2025, we helped put $33,516,000 of SRFB funds and match on the ground in the Chehalis Basin through our work.

A Strategy for Salmon Recovery

Salmon have been adversely affected by many different activities that have happened throughout the landscape over time. We can’t reverse these changes, but we can improve “habitat forming processes” that create good habitat for fish. Given the complexity needed to address habitat degradation, strategic planning is needed to figure out what to focus on in order to best recover wild salmon stocks. In 2011, the Chehalis Basin Collaborative for Salmon Habitat (Lead Entity) released a strategy that includes seven priority approaches for recovering salmon.

• Attain a Healthy and Diverse Population of Wild Salmonids Diversity can only be maintained if all species of salmon in the Chehalis survive and thrive. This means we need to support the species most likely to go extinct without our help (wild salmon stocks that are listed as “depressed”, “threatened” or “endangered”).
• Restore, Enhance, and Protect the Grays Harbor Estuary The Chehalis River flows into the Grays Harbor estuary, a saline bay that is rearing habitat for many types of wild salmonids. Maintaining this “salmon nursery” will take addressing the loss of shoreline habitat and degraded water quality in Grays Harbor.
• Restore and Preserve Properly Functioning Riparian Areas Riparian areas- the zone between land and water- are critical for salmon survival. Restoring and preserving these area starts with assisting landowners to reduce the impacts of their livestock, and assisting forestry operators to address the legacy of poor forestry practices around creeks.
• Restore Habitat Access Undersized culverts on public and private lands create a barrier to salmonids attempting to migrate between to spawning grounds and the sea. There are over 2,700 documented barrier culverts in the Chehalis. Replacing dysfunctional culverts in order to allow salmon passage is a high priority throughout the Chehalis Watershed.
• Restore Properly Functioning Hydrology Ditching, filling and armoring streambanks has led to extremes of high flows in the winter and low flows in the summer, as well as downstream flooding and excessive bank erosion. Reversing these alterations to streamflow will help improve wild salmon habitat.
• Restore Floodplain and Stream Channel Function Floodplains provide fish with habitat for feeding, spawning and rearing, as well as refuge from high velocity flood waters. Levees, dikes, revetments and roads have disconnected valuable floodplains, off-channel habitat, wetlands and sloughs. Projects that restore floodplain function are a major priority in the Chehalis Basin.
• Prioritize Habitat Projects and Activities within Sub-basins That Provide the Highest Benefit to Priority Stocks Since funding is limited, the Chehalis Basin Collaborative for Salmon Habitat needs to work to find projects that have the highest potential for yielding the greatest benefit to priority salmon stocks.