PACIFIC NORTHWEST EDITION
A Supplement to:
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June 1 2025 Vol. IX • No. 11
“The Nation’s Best Read Construction Newspaper… Founded in 1957.” Your Pacific Northwest Connection – Sharon Swanson – 1-760-518-4336 – sswanson@cegltd.com
Fish Passage Barrier Removal Continues On U.S. 101 By Lori Tobias CEG CORRESPONDENT
Work on the removal of three of four fish passage barriers on Washington’s North Olympic Peninsula got under way in March: The project removes and replaces outdated culverts under U.S. 101 and State Route 116 at Lees, Ennis, Tumwater and Chimacum creeks. The $136 million project to remove the four barriers is part of an estimated $9 billion effort ongoing for nearly three decades. Many of the culverts were installed decades ago before the impact on fish was fully understood. Kiewit is the contractor on all four projects. The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) initially began removing the barriers in the 1990s after it developed a fish passage program. A federal court injunction in 2013 required the state to significantly increase its efforts to remove state-owned culverts that block habitat for salmon and steelhead trout by 2030. “We have 2,000 fish barriers statewide, and about 1,000 are subjected to the injunction,” said Kim Rydholm, fish passage delivery manager. “Our initial requirement is to restore access to 90 percent of blocked habitat. The amount of habitat — not the number of barriers — requires that we have about 350 barriers to correct. As of June 2024, we have corrected 146 barriers. “When the injunction was issued, we lined up all 1,000 barriers and added the total amount of blocked habitat to the habitat upstream of the barrier. We have to restore access to 90 percent of the blocked habitat. As we work our way down the list to less and less habitat, there are a lot of barriers in that remaining 10 percent.” The state legislature allocated $3.95 billion for the removal project, which has already been spent. Another $5 billion is necessary to complete the plan. The injunction is specifically related to salmon and steelhead trout and requires the state to provide for passage of fish in all life cycles. There are several reasons a culvert becomes a barrier,
Crews set the stage for a new bridge above Tumwater Creek by installing shafts into the roadway.
Rydholm said. “One is that the stream is too small, so the velocity of the stream increases significantly, and water is moving too fast through the culvert. It could be because the depth of the flow of the water is too shallow, or it can be that its perched, creating like a waterfall at the outlet and the fish have to jump up into the culvert.” see FISH page 10
U.S. 101 at Tumwater Creek closed on March 3, 2025, for 80 days to allow heavy equipment like this Cat excavator to dig up the roadway.