• Continue working to protect and restore fish habitat by reviewing, and responding to plans, permits, and legislation from local, state, and federal agencies to identify necessary mitigation measures and restoration opportunities.

• Engage with local governments, state and federal agencies in an effort to protect and improve fish habitat conditions and protect tribal fishing sites affected by a variety of actions including piers/docks, levee projects, and other activities planned in the Tribe’s U&A.
• Continue to implement the culvert case injunction for barrier corrections at State and Federal Highways, and work with the counties and local governments to correct fish barriers under those jurisdictions.
• Continue monitoring water quality in the White River and Crisp Creek to document conditions and pollution levels.
• Implement the pH and phosphorus cleanup plan for the White River with state and federal agencies.
• Maintain the Tribe’s Water Quality Lab for accreditation to ensure that the Lab continues to meet professional standards to test for several water quality parameters.
• Track and influence state legislation that affects instream flow and habitat and to participate in watershed planning and habitat restoration efforts. Water right permitting processes will be monitored and tribal interests addressed.

Watershed and Land Use Team Highlights

• Reviewed over 2,100 federal, state, and local government permits, and over 250 were prioritized for further review and/or site visits. Team efforts often resulted in project modifications of new measures to mitigate negative development effects on fish habitat. Examples were adding fish-passible culverts at road crossings, minimizing or mitigating the adverse impacts of levee maintenance and associated Habitat Conservation Plans, verifying streams that support salmon, and increasing buffers to better protect wetlands and streams.
• Worked closely with Federal and State agencies subject to the federal culvert case injunction to ensure that new and replaced road crossings would not impede salmon migration. Technical recommendations and oversight were provided for dozens of Interstate and State Highway projects involving multiple stream crossings, such as the SR 167, SR 522, SR 524, SR 18, SR 169, SR 202, SR 410, SR 525, SR 164, I-5 and I-405 road widening projects, and Sound Transit’s Lynnwood, Redmond, Ballard, West Seattle, and Federal Way Interchange at I-5.
• Continued our engagement with the US Army Corps of Engineers regarding mitigation banking projects proposed in the U&A to ensure that salmon and their habitats are sufficiently protected.
• Continued working on floodplain and habitat restoration opportunities on the Cedar, Green, White, and Puyallup Rivers as well as many tributaries.

Water Team Highlights

• Monitored water quality in the White River and Crisp Creek, which is the source of water for operations at the Tribe’s Keta-Crisp Creek Hatchery. Monitoring results will be shared as appropriate with other agencies to document conditions and pollution levels.
• Continued work with state and federal agencies to complete a water clean up plan to reduce pollution from piped discharges in the White River. Staff worked with local agencies to address agricultural and hobby farm pollution along the White River and its tributaries.
• Maintained State accreditation to test water quality samples for six water quality parameters in the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe’s Water Quality Laboratory.
• Participated on the state Legislative Task Force on Water Rights Mitigation as the technical tribal representative. Advocated for fish and flow protection currently in the water code and opposed legislative changes to weaken those.
• Worked with the Tribe’s lobbyist to ensure no laws adverse to flow protection were passed by the state legislature.
• Monitored the Tribe’s hatchery water rights to ensure compliance with permits and tracked water right issues in the Tribe’s U&A area. Successfully secured the water right change for the Tribe’s White River Hatchery.
• Tracked flow operations for the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) for the new Fish Passage Facility on the White River and communicated concerns for fish habitat to the USACE.