Nisqually River Delta Estuary Restoration
The largest estuary restoration in the Pacific Northwest: 1,100+ acres of tidal wetlands reconnected at the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge since 2009, dramatically improving rearing habitat for juvenile Chinook.
Project Overview
For more than a century, the Nisqually River delta was cut off from the tides by a network of agricultural dikes and earthen berms. In 2009, the Nisqually Indian Tribe, Nisqually Land Trust, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service removed 8.5 miles of dikes to reconnect 762 acres of historic tidal wetlands — at the time, the largest estuarine restoration in the history of the Pacific Northwest.
A second phase in 2018 reconnected an additional 338 acres, bringing the total to more than 1,100 acres of functioning tidal marsh and mudflat. Within months of each dike removal, tidal channels began reforming naturally, native marsh vegetation recovered, and monitoring detected significantly higher densities of juvenile Chinook in the restored areas compared to un-restored reference sites. Outmigrating juvenile salmon from the entire Nisqually watershed depend on this estuary as a critical transitional habitat before entering the saltwater of Puget Sound.
The project is named for Billy Frank Jr., the Nisqually tribal leader and civil rights activist whose decades of advocacy for treaty fishing rights shaped the legal and political landscape that made this restoration possible. WDFW and NOAA continue to monitor salmon use, water quality, and vegetation recovery at the site.
Project Details
2009
Year Started
Nisqually Indian Tribe, Nisqually Land Trust, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, WDFW
Partner Organizations
active
Project Status
Watershed Data
This project operates in the Nisqually River watershed (South Sound). View current salmon health indicators and environmental conditions.