The Willapa Bay estuary restoration project will restore and protect over 860 acres of estuary habitat in Pacific County, two miles west of South Bend on Willapa Bay. Critically limited esturarine habitat will be created and wetland sloughs will be restored to provide rearing and nursery habitats for juvenile salmonids making the stressful fresh to saltwater transition. Other project benefits include increased flood water storge and water quality, increased tide water dispersion decreasing erosion of existing tidal areas, and rejuvenated riparian habitat that increases primary production and aquatic and terrestrial insect populations which juvenile salmonids depend upon. This project will also create habitat for shorebirds, waterfowl, and marine invertebrates. Approximately $347,500 in SRFB funds will leverage over $4 million in federal funds for NRCS to purchase perpetual easements for the project area and to restore the estuary. Fee titles will be transferred to WDFW. A $20 thousand dollar topographic survey determining pre-project conditions and facilitating project design by Ducks Unlimited and USFWS has been completed. Upon funding from SRFB, project partners will buy the properties and begin the restoration process. Project partners include WDFW, DU, NRCS, USFWS, Army Corps of Engineers, Willapa Bay Fisheries Enhancement Group, Willapa Alliance, and Columbia-Pacific RC&D.