DESCRIPTION
Trout Unlimited, City of Issaquah, and Washington State Parks have partnered to complete final design and permitting needed to replace three WDFW documented fish passage barriers including two within East Lake Sammamish Parkway SE with a full span structure and one partial barrier within the State Park on Laughing Jacobs Creek in King County. This streams channel has also migrated recently just upstream of the parkway creating an additional barrier . This project is identified among the top restoration priorities for Laughing Jacobs Creek on the 2020 WRIA 8 4 year work plan (LS-3) and the Blueprint for the Restoration and Enhancement of Lake Sammamish Kokanee Tributaries (2014).This project advances the core components of the preferred restoration alternative selected by a restoration feasibility and alternative analysis completed on Lower Laughing Jacobs Creek (2020). Replacement of the identified barriers will allow unrestricted access to 1.86 miles of high quality habitat that supports threatened Chinook salmon, federally threatened steelhead and Coho salmon, and kokanee salmon, and cutthroat trout. The goal of this project is to remove barriers for threatened juvenile Chinook salmon, coho salmon, and kokanee salmon allowing access to this desperately needed rearing, foraging, shelter, and spawning habitat.