This project is part of a long term effort to improve salmon habitat in the South Fork Pysht River (SFP), the largest tributary to the Pysht River.  We propose to complete an engineering design focused on the lower 7 kilometers of the the SFP. The project will occur in partnership with Merrill and Ring who own all the lands in project reach.  Since 1994, Merrill and Ring and the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe have conducted a series of cooperative restoration projects focusing on large wood and riparian restoration at multiple sites in the watershed.  On the SFP, large wood has been previously added to four reaches between 1994-2006.   In 2023, the Tribe conducted a comprehensive habitat assessment of the entire SFP that encompassed 14 km. That survey showed that roughly half of that reach was recovering while the other half was degraded.  The degraded reach was primarily in the lower 7 km of the system where habitat was dominated by plain bed and incised channels that lacked complexity and had limiited spawning and rearing habitat.  Because of the scale and extent of historic logging and stream cleaning practices, the entire watershed remains chronically deficient of in-channel LWD (McHenry et al.1994, WRIA 19 Salmon Recovery Plan, LEKT 2023) and the age and composition of riparian forests is currently not adequate to support habitat forming processes.