Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group (SFEG) used this funding to remove and treat nonnative vegetation along a newly restored section of Deepwater Slough, the toe of the dike, and in other small areas. The Deepwater Slough Project is a 204-acre estuary restoration site at the mouth of the Skagit River. The overall project involved setting back dikes to restore estuary habitat for salmonids. The goal was to restore natural processes, functions, conditions and biological responses in the project area. To achieve this goal dikes were removed to restore river and tidal influence and inundation to the project area. Initial monitoring and adaptive management identified invasive species as a persistent problem surrounding the removal and construction of one of the dikes, and this funding addressed that need. Nonnative invasive species treated include Himalayan blackberry, Scot’s broom, reed canary grass and purple loosestrife. These activities occurred primarily along the right bank dike of Deepwater slough along 2,000 lineal feet of open slough channel for a total treatment area of 4 acres. Some areas were left to revegetate through natural recruitment, SFEG planted other areas with native scrub-shrub sweet gale (Myrica gale). Sweet Gale was installed in approximately 10 acres to establish native vegetation where reed canary grass and cattails previously dominated. Sweet gale was planted in three basic zones: ground, mounds, and wood. In general the most successful plantings were in ground and wood. The mounds were washed away by flood flows. Wood planting was in pieces of large woody debris. The estuary and delta areas of the Skagit Basin were identified as key habitat by the Skagit Watershed Council’s Strategy for Protection and Restoration of Salmonids in the Skagit Watershed. Specific research showed that estuary habitat in the Skagit Basin is limiting for ESA listed Chinook and ESA species of concern coho.