Site Selection Location

Site Selection

1. Location

2. Site Selection

As described in the Program Instrument, the KC MRP selects mitigation sites to address watershed needs as determined through best available science. As described in the Compensation Planning Framework in Appendix I, Section 3.0 of the King County Mitigation Reserves Program – In Lieu Fee Program Instrument (Program Instrument) (King County, 2012), the goals for mitigation in a watershed context in the Cedar River watershed include:

1. 
   Reduce Flood Damage: Eliminate the risk that flooding poses to human lives and reduce the economic and property damage from flooding.
   
2. 
   Protect and Restore Aquatic Habitat: Protect and restore natural salmon runs and other aquatic resources, where feasible, by protecting existing high-quality habitat and restoring degraded habitats.
   
3. 
   Maintain Water Quality: Maintain current water quality in the Cedar River basin by requiring appropriate treatment from new development and reducing pollutants from existing sources.
   

• 
  Loss of floodplain connectivity: reduced access to side-channels or off-channel areas due to bank armoring and development close to shorelines. Improving floodplain connectivity through implementation of the EBR Mitigation Project will allow the river to expand into/utilize its historic floodplain for flood storage, energy dissipation, side channel formation/channel migration and sediment storage and/or recruitment.
  
• 
  Lack of riparian vegetation: from clearing and development. Enhancing riparian vegetation will promote LWD recruitment to the Cedar River, provide cover for habitat and shade, and increase allochthonous inputs.
  

The EBR Mitigation Project would achieve these goals and address these limiting factors by accomplishing the following objectives. These are not listed in priority order. The mitigation goal each objective meets is in parentheses after each of the objectives below:

1. 
   Provide off-channel rearing and high-flow refuge salmonid habitat with appropriate baseflow, depth, and other habitat features to provide quality habitat function for salmonids throughout the year (Goal 2);
   
2. 
   Create a channel profile to minimize potential for fish stranding and maintain positive drainage to the Cedar River (Goal 2);
   
3. 
   Plant native vegetation to provide adequate shade and overhanging cover along the backwater channel (Goals 2, 3);
   
4. 
   Provide channel margin habitat along the right bank of the main stem of the Cedar River with suitable substrate for chinook spawning (Goal 2);
   
5. 
   Provide an engineered log jam (or similar wood structure) to form a scour pool(s) suitable for adult salmon holding habitat. Wood should be exposed to the normal range of flows including low flows and withstand 100-year flow conditions (Goal 2);
   
6. 
   Grade as necessary to create desired floodplain or wetland conditions (Goal 1);
   
7. 
   Provide 4.23 acres of riparian vegetation throughout the floodplain/wetland complex (up to the approximate 100-year flow elevation) that promotes LWD recruitment to the Cedar River, cover, and allochthonous inputs (Goal 1, 2, 3);
   
8. 
   Provide stable LWD features for floodplain roughness (Goals 1, 2);
   
9. 
   Preserve existing natural vegetation to the extent practical; trees or other vegetation removed during construction will be incorporated in design (Goal 2);
   
10. 
    Implement a project that will be compatible with future reach wide habitat and flood hazard reduction projects (Goals 1, 2, 3);
    
11. 
    Maintain current level of flood hazard protection to adjacent properties (Goal 1);
    
12. 
    Facilitate the re-establishment of floodplain connections that allow the river to expand into/utilize its historic floodplain for flood storage, energy dissipation, side channel formation/channel migration and sediment storage and/or recruitment (Goal 1);
    
13. 
    Address potential recreational safety impacts related to installation of mainstem habitat structures (required by policy);
    
14. 
    Improve riparian plant diversity by replanting native tree and shrub species and controlling invasive species (Goal 2).
    

Although the EBR Mitigation Project was identified as a restoration project in the WRIA 8 Chinook Salmon Conservation Plan, a letter to Karen Walter, Watershed and Land Use Team Leader, MITFD addressed the issue by stating, “We understand and are in agreement with the fundamental idea that mitigation should not be counted as restoration for the purposes of chinook salmon recovery. To this end, WRIA 8 staff will present this item to the WRIA 8 Salmon Recovery Council at an upcoming meeting and will seek their input and guidance on the appropriate way to address this policy issue in the update to the WRIA 8 Plan, which is intended to commence later in 2015. In the meantime, we will exclude the [EBR Mitigation] project from any habitat restoration metric reporting” (Lake Washington/Cedar/Sammamish (WRIA 8) Watershed March 2015).

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