County restoring salmon habitat

Published 10:06 pm Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Chinook salmon once flourished in tidal marshes that stretched from Smith Island, near the mouth of the Snohomish River, upstream to Ebey Slough.

That fish habitat started disappearing rapidly after the 19th century as settlers set up dikes to turn the area to farmland. Only one-sixth of the marsh remains today.

The county hopes a $13 million effort to restore chinook habitat on Smith Island will change that. The project would come at the expense of farmland, though, and some farmers are strongly opposed.

“The big question on the table is, ‘What’s the appropriate mix of agriculture versus habitat restoration?’ ” county public works director Steve Thomsen said.

The project, funded by federal, state and local sources, could be complete by 2013. It would involve about 500 acres between Everett and Marysville, east of I-5 near Everett’s sewage treatment plant.

A horse-boarding facility drew attention to the project earlier this year when tenants learned they could be evicted to make way for the habitat plan. The county — which owns the land and leases it to the facility — later granted a reprieve.

County public works officials had been weighing three options for re-flooding parts of the low-lying area. In one, they would have converted 479 acres to habitat and left about 20 acres for agriculture. In the others, they would have left between 138 and 239 acres for agriculture.

About 60 people gave feedback on the proposals during a monthlong comment period this spring, Thomsen said. The majority had a favorable view, but nine were opposed, including farmers and other agricultural businesses.

The Washington Farm Bureau objected to the loss of hundreds of acres of agricultural land. That would conflict with state and county policies to preserve this land, farm bureau president Steve Appel wrote in a letter to the county’s public works department.

The project has already affected River Delta Ranch before even getting under way. Earlier this year, county officials told the horse-boarding business to leave by the end of April. They later opted to let the business stay until October, and up to six months beyond that on a month-to-month basis.

Even so, the deadline caused a dozen boarders to take horses to other facilities, said Mark Convey, who lives on the property and looks after the animals. That leaves 12 paying tenants and the county won’t let them accept any new horses. It isn’t enough to cover costs, he said.

“We’re in the red and the county knows it,” Convey said. “We’re just going to have to ride it out until October and basically fold.”

River Delta charges $75 per month. Tenants have said they can’t afford to keep their horses anywhere else.

Thomsen said his staff would work with the business to stay long term, depending on the final plan.

The county expects to spend two to three months working on a draft environmental impact statement before choosing a preferred option, Thomsen said. Afterward, the public would have another chance to weigh in before the county settles on the final option.

More online

For information on the salmon restoration project, go to www.snoco.org and type in “Smith Island.”