The almost $30 million in grants announced Monday by the Washington Salmon Recovery Funding Board included $1.8 million for projects in Yakima, Kittitas and Klickitat counties.
The largest chunk of the $508,887 awarded in Yakima County is a $275,400 Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) grant to the City of Yakima for floodplain restoration and off-channel work along the Yakima River.
The work entails the reshaping of a shallow gravel-pit pond in the floodplain and restoring its outlet to the Yakima River, replanting the area and replacing a 40-foot culvert with a structure to facilitate fish passage.
Yakima is responsible for $157,000 in matching funds for the work, which is to be the first phase of a three-phase project to restore 200 to 300 acres of habitat in the Gap to Gap reach on property owned by the City of Yakima, the Yakima Greenway, Yakama Nation and the Washington Department of Transportation.
Other Yakima County projects approved for RCO funding:
* Two projects involving floodplain habitat restoration in Lower Cowiche Creek -- $90,754 to the Mid-Columbia Fisheries Enhancement Group and $105,000 to Yakima County Public Services.
* In a project that spans Yakima and Kittitas counties, $98,500 to the Yakama Nation to restore the banks of lower Reecer Creek, where years of agriculture use and subsequent non-use have left the creek banks overgrown with weeds and non-conducive to spawning fish.
