City of Edmonds will develop a preliminary design to reconnect the 28-acre Edmonds Marsh to Puget Sound, restoring uninterrupted juvenile fish passage to this barrier estuary, located adjacent to the city's downtown core. Restoration designs will include a new tidal channel, and in-stream and riparian habitat enhancements. The design effort will include continued communications with landowners within the restoration area, primarily Washington Department of Transportation-Ferries Division, slated to be the future owner of the Unocal Property. This future estuary restoration project addresses a key salmon recovery issue of limited juvenile access to important, yet rare, nearshore rearing habitat. Once constructed (in a future phase) the project will enable juvenile fish passage to rearing habitat for out-migrating Chinook, coho, chum and pink salmon to an area that is currently inaccessible to fish, increasing nearshore habitat diversity available along the highly degraded WRIA 8 nearshore. This RCO funding request will complete preliminary design, but the City is leveraging other funding sources to ensure a full design can be completed without additional funding requests of RCO. The project restores a essential lost estuary connection and valuable fish habitat, but also has the unique condition in that it can actually add new aquatic habitat (in upland Shellabarger Marsh) when combined with the advent of sea-level rise. Designs will meet standards of Manual 18 Appendix D-2.