The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday that the Biden administration is giving an extra $105 million to projects in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska that are trying to help salmon recover.
This is the next step in a set of steps to help salmon and their habitat get back to normal in West Coast waters. It’s part of the Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund, which gives money to the species and plans for how to keep the environment safe in the future.
In Alaska, California, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, the money will go to projects “that include habitat restoration, stock enhancement, sustainable fisheries, and research and monitoring,” NOAA said. Along with the money that has been put in by Indigenous groups to help salmon populations, this will be done.
“This $105 million investment… will build on decades of salmon recovery work, while helping Pacific coast tribes and Alaska Natives sustain their communities and cultural traditions in the face of climate change,” said U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. “This is a result of the most ambitious climate agenda in history, and I am proud that nearly half of all funds in this announcement are being awarded to Tribal applicants.”
Salmon restoration has been at the top of the news lately because of the long-lasting drought in the West, which has caused water levels to drop in important habitat areas and put salmon and other marine life at risk. It was a very odd thing for NOAA to cancel the Chinook salmon and the fall-run Chinook salmon in the Sacramento River. Last year, “nearly record low numbers” of Chinook salmon returned to California’s Central Valley.
The Environmental Protection Agency used the Clean Water Act to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed earlier last year. They did this to stop the buildup of pebbles that could hurt salmon supplies.
That move made it illegal to dump dredged material or other trash in important watersheds.
That money move on Thursday will help the recovery of 28 species of endangered salmon and steelhead, other salmon that are not protected, steelhead that are needed for native subsistence or tribal treaty fishing rights, and people in the Columbia River Basin, according to NOAA.
The PCSRF program has helped fish and their homes in lots of different ways, according to Janet Coit, who is the assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries. “The value of these investments goes far beyond recovering Pacific salmon and steelhead and their habitats, to also provide community and economic benefits, such as jobs and climate resilience.”
