GNA Spotlight - Washington, September 2022

Good Neighbor Authority Spotlight

Authored by Trevor McConchie, Federal Lands Assistant Division Manager, Washington Department of Natural Resources 

The Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) partnered with the Olympic National Forest (ONF) in 2020 under their existing Forest-wide Restoration GNA Agreement to begin the process of replacing a perched 72” culvert blocking approximately 1 mile of upstream critical salmon habitat. Leveraging state funding, this $300,000 aquatic organism passage project was considered a high-priority for both agencies to meet multiple salmon recovery objectives.

This bridge is part of the 2D Restoration Thin timber sale project, focused on accelerating old-growth stand structure and habitat improvement, and was a collaboration of DNR’s Federal Lands and State Uplands engineers working with ONF and USDA Forest Service Region 6 engineers. DNR in-house engineers designed a permanent 70-foot steel bridge to be placed on driven piles for the location using DNR’s contracts and internal design processes. The 2D Restoration Thin timber sale generated approximately $800,000 in revenue to be used as part of the project and future terrestrial and aquatic habitat restoration projects. The bridge is planned for installation in summer 2023.

For more information about this project, contact Trevor McConchie.

Photo Credit: Justin Long, Federal Lands Lead Engineer