The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is offering federal grants totaling $6.3 million to groups working on ways to protect and repair watersheds in the Puget Sound region.
These restoration projects attempt to offset the damage caused by growth and stormwater runoff through new approaches to land use and water quality improvements in the 19 watersheds that make up the Puget Sound region.
“As our communities grow and prosper, it’s important that we develop and use the land in ways that protect our working lands, our streams and the Sound itself,” Gov. Chris Gregoire said in a statement announcing the grant awards. “These grants will help us do that.”
Some of the 18 projects with multiple partners include:
• $187,450 for the Thurston Conservation District to help preserve farmland by linking farmers looking for land with landowners who don’t want to convert their agricultural lands to other uses such as housing developments.
“That’s definitely part of our mission,” said Russ Fox, a board member for the South of the Sound Community Farmland Trust, one of the conservation district’s partners.
Fox said the challenge is hooking up young, motivated farmers — well-trained but lacking the financial resources to buy land — with landowners who are compensated through conservation easements, the purchase and transfer of development right, open space tax credits and other tools.
• $170,000 for the Nisqually Indian Tribe to work with partners in the upper Nisqually River watershed near Eatonville on a market-based approach that encourages landowners to protect and restore their forested properties, and be compensated for their efforts, noted Dan Stonington, executive director of the Northwest Natural Resource Group, a Seattle-based nonprofit.
One of the goals is to preserve working forests around the Mashel River and Ohop Creek — two key tributaries of the Nisqually River.
Environmental benefits provided by landowners would be given an economic value and made available for sale to other interests, such as salmon enhancement groups and utilities.
The grant will be used in part to develop guidelines for landowners to sell such environmental benefits derived from sustainable forestry that goes beyond what is required in state forestry rules, Stonington explained. The four environmental values to be marketed include: reduced sediment disposal in streams, increased water temperature, carbon storage and reduced conversion of forests to other uses.
• Another project includes $500,000 awarded to The Nature Conservancy to identify what floodplain areas in Puget Sound have the best potential for storing floodwaters and providing fish and wildlife habitat. It would encourage a new way of looking at flood-risk reduction that goes beyond building river levees and dikes.
• Washington State University will receive $480,584 to test new methods to treat stormwater and conduct research on permeable pavement materials at the university’s Research and Extension Center in Puyallup.
The results will be used to test and advance low impact development techniques at sites in Puyallup, Bellingham, the Port of Tacoma and Kitsap County.
John Dodge: 360-754-5444
jdodge@theolympian.com
LEARN MORE
A full list of the grants offered by EPA is available at tinyurl.com/watershedgrants.
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