The Union River Estuary Restoration project was a restoration project based on the design funded by the SRFB in 2010. It is located at the mouth of the Union River in Mason County adjacent to Belfair and represents over 23% of the original Union/Lynch Cove Estuary The purpose of this project was to restore the estuary and tidal function to 31 acres by breaching the existing dike in two locations, regrading to a variety of elevations, accommodating storm water drainage, replicating native estuarine habitat, primarily vegetated estuarine saltmarsh habitat necessary for juvenile endangered Hood Canal summer chum and Puget Sound Chinook as well as coho, cutthroat trout. It was also designed to prevent flooding of surrounding property owners while accommodating continued recreational use of the existing trail system (IAC 1994) with pile supported walkways over the dike breaches. One 300 foot breach and another 100 foot breach was developed in order permit both salt and fresh water inundation and create maximum value for the scale of the project. Land use changes have been documented (LFA, 2003) and the Union River is identified as a tier 1 priority watershed S H R S, 2004) for habitat restoration.