Outreach
Permits are complete and Phase 1 construction in the golf course has begun
SRSC has received all major state and federal permits required for the project and are beginning construction on the freshwater phase
Phase 1 Construction - 9/3/2024
Final designs are complete for the freshwater phase of the project occurring in the golf course. SRSC has worked with the Swinomish Tribe and Golf Course staff to redesign the southern portion of the golf course to be resilient as a new part of the coastline post project. This phase will daylight a coastal stream that drains the golf course and plant a riparian buffer around the new stream. Three pedestrian bridges will be installed to allow golfers to traverse the course, and some elements of the course will be reoriented, removed, and raised.
SRSC expects this work to be complete by October. The southern half of the golf course will be closed September 16th – 30th while construction contractors complete the channel excavation.
Next, SRSC will work with Skagit County to design the new Satterlee Road and Bridge and finalize channel designs for the marsh area. These elements are likely to be constructed in 2026.
SRSC is in the business of weed and invasive control around restoration projects, and is planning on eliminating blackberry, poison hemlock, and invasive cattail and re-planting with native vegetation. Property owners that neighbor the project site and would like invasives like blackberry removed should contact SRSC.
Community Site Visit and Meet and Greet - 8/7/2024
A site visit and community meeting was held on 8/7/2024. Fliers were sent out to the neighboring community 2 weeks prior and an email was sent to those who subscribed to the email list. SRSC, Swinomish Tribe, and Skagit County Staff and elected officials spoke and fielded questions from the community. Most questions were directed at the updated transportation and the construction process, much of which has yet to be designed.
Once the transportation and marsh designs are finalized we will initiate another phase of outreach to neighbors to update them on the proposed design and construction plan and schedule. We do not know when this will be but is most likely summer of 2025.
SRFB/PSAR large capital grant Site Visit - 5/7/2024
SRFB approval for $1.3 million partial funding
SRSC submitted a proposal to a dual grant for the State of Washington’s Recreation and Conservation Office’s Salmon Recovery Funding Board program and the Puget Sound Partnership’s Puget Sound Acquisition and Restoration Large Capital competition. A site visit was held on May 7th, 2024 to give technical reviewers an opportunity to see the project site and the new freshwater portion of the project.
The project was approved for partial funding through SRFB to fund the tidal marsh restoration of the project. An estimated budget gap of around $2.3 million remains to complete Satterlee Road.
The salmon recovery proposal is submitted to RCO. If ranked, funding will be awarded at the end of the summer.
The Basis of Design Report has been finalized and submitted with the proposal. It is now publicly available by clicking the link above. The report has an executive summary as well as preliminary design drawings and detailed technical reports as appendicies.
Second Open House 5/23/22
A second open house was held on Monday May 23rd to accommodate participants who could not get into the first open house meeting due to zoom link problems. Participation was decent, and included Commissioner Lisa Janicki from Skagit County who described the County’s support for the project. Relatively few questions and concerns were raised in this meeting, but included concerns about public access, vegetation restoration plans, and septic systems.
We have conducted a preliminary septic investigation that does not indicate any septic issues, but we are lacking information for several septic systems and will need to investigate them as well before we are confident of no impacts.
We will soon complete review of the draft preliminary designs, which will be available to the public.
Next we will continue to reach out to individuals with specific concerns as well as individuals where we need septic system information.
Artist concepts 5/11/22
This is a series of artist concepts for what we expect the Similk pocket estuary could look like several years after restoration. The extent to which vegetation will fill the marsh is uncertain, but the margins appear to be at an elevation that will support salt water emergent marsh and transitional marsh further upslope. There will be unvegetated mud flat in the deeper areas, and we expect large wood to accumulate along the northern margins of the estuary over the years. Other similar pocket estuary projects completed nearby include Turners Bay Lagoon and Crescent Harbor Lagoon.
FIRST VIRTUAL OPEN HOUSE (5/10/22)
Thank you to those who attended or attempted to attend the meeting. We apologize for the difficulties with the zoom link. We mustered the meeting with the team a half hour early to deal with any potential issues, and immediately discovered the link issue and attempted to fix it by updating the link on the website. Despite this fix, unfortunately the wrong link was either cashed in people’s browsers, or the fix took too long to percolate through the internet to be updated for everyone. The result was that the same website had different links for different people, which is why we still had a decent turn out. If it was a cashe issue, it was likely the people who have visited the website previously who encountered the problem. In the future we will be sure the website has the correct link at least a week before, and be using a different link structure to avoid the these issues out of our immediate control.
This is another reason to sign up for the email list! I emailed the correct link to the limited list I had from people who signed up. I will be sending out the link to the list the day of on future meetings. It will also be posted on this page above.
We are planning a second virtual open house for Monday May 23rd, 2022 (link at top of page).
The recording of the meeting is posted below.