State grant extends Lake Stevens salmon habitat plan

Published 1:30 am Friday, February 27, 2026

LAKE STEVENS — A new state grant will help fund an ongoing project in Lake Stevens to improve salmon habitat and water quality in the city.

On Tuesday, the Lake Stevens City Council voted unanimously to accept the $106,000 grant from the Washington State Department of Commerce. It will fund the next phase of the city’s Plan for Salmonid Basins, which began in January 2025 to protect and restore salmon habitats in the city watershed.

The plan has been funded so far by a Department of Commerce grant totalling $247,339. That money has primarily gone toward collecting land-use, soil, pollution and water-quality data to help develop goals that could be added to the city’s comprehensive plan.

The new grant will help with the next step: analyzing the data and identifying how the goals could be put into action.

“It’s identifying the projects, giving us a conceptual design of what does that look like and a cost estimate. Then we’ll use that when we look at future grant opportunities,” Environmental Programs Manager Shannon Farrant said in an interview after the Tuesday meeting. “The other component of it is looking at our regulations.”

Amendments to the city’s municipal code, if adopted, could happen right away, she said. However, other projects or ideas identified with this round of funding would happen later.

“Phase two will end towards the end of this year, beginning of next year,” Farrant said. “There’s no official phase three that has been identified. But, yeah, the next step would be to actually start doing those projects that have been identified.”

The city will need to apply for new funding sources based on the estimated costs of the projects identified over the next year, she said.

While protecting water quality and salmon habitats is the primary goal, the city’s economic growth remains an important factor in the Lake Stevens basins plan, which states decisions will “support a balance” between the two.

Taylor Scott Richmond: 425-339-3046; taylor.richmond@gmail.com; X: @BTayOkay