King County will use funds to complete preliminary design and initiate permitting of the Lower Frew Floodplain Reconnection Project (Lower Frew). The Lower Frew project will remove and set back the 2,800 ft. Lower Frew Levee along the right bank of the Tolt River. This project will reconnect up to 34 acres of the Tolt River floodplain and provide improved edge habitat along the old levee footprint in addition to the side channels and ponds that will be reconnected to the river. Floodplain reconnection is one of the highest priority actions in the Snohomish River Basin Salmon Conservation Plan (2005). This project is part of a greater vision for the implementation of multiple floodplain reconnection projects in the lower Tolt reach and will add to the nearly 50-acres of floodplain that were reconnected by the Tolt River Floodplain Project implemented in 2009. The new Lower Frew setback levee will also serve as a passive recreation trail for the city of Carnation and the surrounding community with connections to the Snoqualmie Valley Trail and the trail established in 2009 by the implementation of the Lower Tolt project. The lower Tolt River is one of four important spawning areas for threatened Chinook. Nearly 20 percent of the Snoqualmie Watershed’s Chinook salmon returns to the Tolt to spawn. Coho, chum and pink salmon as well as ESA-listed steelhead and bull trout use the Tolt River.