10-105 - King Conservation District No 9 - Duwamish Gardens Grant Funding

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of the site The project is immediately below the Sound Transit LINK light rail bridge and viewed by thousands of riders each day The Conservation District has supported previous phases of this project including "Duwamish Gardens Negotiations 2007 $15,000 for property negotiations "Duwamish Gardens Acquisition 2007 $225,000 for property acquisition 2. Natural Resource Improvement Actions describe how the project will address a minimum of one of the natural resource improvement actions described on page 1 of the application instructions. Consider the following in your answer to this question: What natural resources will be improved? What are the known needs, gaps or deficits that will be addressed? What are the known benefits to soil, water, air, plants, fish and wildlife, landowners? Direct Improvement of Natural Resource Conditions: The goal of the Duwamish Gardens estuary restoration project the ultimate outcome of the planning /permitting step is to directly restore transition zone estuarine habitat in the Duwamish Estuary, with the intent of improving salmonid habitat within the Green Duwamish River system as a whole. This project will protect and improve riparian vegetation, expand and enhance vegetated shallow subtidal and intertidal habitats and brackish marshes, and enlarge the Duwamish River estuarine transition zone habitat. The resulting off channel, intertidal marsh will provide critically important transitional habitat where juvenile salmonids will feed, rest, and osmoregulate (adjust to salt water) prior to heading downstream to the marine nearshore Duwamish Gardens restoration is being undertaken to implement Policy MS -1 in the WRIA 9 Salmon Habitat Plan: Makina Our Watershed Fit for a Kina. The focus of management action implementation efforts in this Habitat Plan will be on the following distinct habitats that are limiting viable salmonid populations in WRIA 9 Duwamish Estuary transition zone habitat [emphasis added]; Middle Green River, Lower Green River, Duwamish Estuary, Marine Nearshore rearing habitat; and Middle Green and upper Lower Green River spawning habitat. Because of the importance of the transition zone and the negative effect on habitat recovery efforts upstream if a severe transition zone habitat limitation does exist, 40% of funding for management action recovery efforts will be focused on the transition zone [emphasis added] (page 5 -16) The habitat feature most needed in the Lower Duwamish for salmon recovery is mudflat within the entire intertidal range between -4 and +12 ft Mean Lower Low Water (MLLW), with an emphasis on mudflats in the low intertidal between -4 to +4 ft MLLW. These mudflats should have a relatively shallow grade, a silt /clay to fine sand substrate, and be unvegetated. Also needed and complementing mudflats are Low marsh from +5 5 to +10 0 ft. MLLW, vegetated with aquatic vascular plants, and High marsh from +10 0 to +12 0 ft MLLW, vegetated with aquatic vascular plants and terrestrial plants Member Jurisdiction WRIA Forum Grant Program, Application July 18, 2008 Page 2 of 7