The City of Kent used this grant to complete Final Design and permitting of the Mill Creek Confluence/Green River Restoration Project, also known as the Leber Homestead Restoration project. The preliminary design proposed a side channel off the Green River near the confluence of Mill Creek to increase floodplain refuge habitat for Chinook and other salmonids, enhance riparian habitat and to restore floodplain functions. After several meetings involving the Stakeholders group, including the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, WRIA 9 and King County's certified ecologist, the preliminary design was re-designed to create a side-channel off Mill Creek-Auburn instead of off the Green River which will still meet project goals and objectives, providing off-channel flood refuge for Chinook, while retaining almost all of the trees on site which was requested by the Muckleshoot Tribe. The final design incorporates comments by the SRFB Review Panel and Stakeholders. Final design addressed size and location of log structures, snags and sedimentation. Once restoration is completed in a subsequent phase, the new channel will provide over 1.5 acres of underwater area to provide high-flow refuge for salmon and to help reduce flood risk. The project also includes improved habitat on the east bank of Mill Creek and surrounding side channel. All non-native invasive vegetation will be removed and replaced with native near-water and upland plants. Existing mature trees along the banks of Mill Creek and the Green River, which provide shade to cool water temperatures, will be preserved. Coho and Chinook salmon, cutthroat, steelhead and bull trout populations still make extensive use of Mill Creek, the only major tributary to the Green River between Soos Creek-Auburn and the mouth of the Duwamish River that provides unrestricted salmonid access. The final design plans were updated to reflect construction in one phase instead of two phases, if funding for construction is awarded for 2013. The final design was completed by City of Kent staff which greatly reduced design costs. This project is identified in the WRIA 9 Green/Duwamish and Central Puget Sound Watershed Final Salmon Habitat Plan-August 2005 as a priority project, LG-7, Lower Mill Creek. A preliminary design project was previously funded by SRFB for Feasibility and 30% Design, project # 05-1519, and was completed in February 2009.