Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group used this funding to complete a restoration project in the Quilcene Estuary. Quilcene Bay, Washington and its associated coastal wetlands provide significant habitats for a wide diversity of wildlife and fish populations including marine mammals, seabirds, migratory shorebirds, migratory and breeding waterfowl, neotropical birds, raptors, salmon, clams and Dungeness crab. Much of Quilcene Bay's estuarine wetlands have been lost by the impacts of agricultural diking, road building and flood control projects. The Quilcene Estuarine Wetlands Restoration and Protection Project returned 38 acres of coastal wetland habitats to properly functioning conditions for the benefit of numerous healthy and imperiled fish and wildlife species. The project was identified in the Hood Canal/Water Resources Inventory Area (WRIA) 17 Limiting Factors Analysis (Washington State Conservation Commission 2002) as a Tier 1 (most important habitat), Priority 1 (most important project) project for the recovery of several Hood Canal salmonid species listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. The work accomplished included: 1) permanently removing livestock from the 38 acre restoration site, 2) completely removing 3,000 feet of saltwater levee, 3) reestablishing a properly functioning tidal channel network by removing fill from former tidal channels and installing large woody debris in tidal channel network 4) re-establishing appropriate plant communities upon adjacent emergent wetlands. The restored estuarine wetlands (38 acres) and an adjacent 12 acres of estuarine wetlands (50 acres total) will be conserved in perpetuity using a conservation easement.