This project successfully completed the preliminary design phase for the restoration of the Similk Estuary. Preliminary (%30) designs were completed for the habitat and restoration features of the proposed project and conceptual (%10) designs and transportation planning were developed for the transportation elements including the road and bridge. Further design must be completed in partnership with Skagit County, who owns and maintains Satterlee Road. Habitat preliminary designs included a single 75ft wide primary tidal channel and network of secondary and tertiary channels designed to approximate natural conditions. The channels will restore tidal inundation to roughly 17 acres of shallow tidal marsh habitat and provide deeper channel and channel edge habitat and topographic complexity to provide estuarine marsh habitat heterogeny. We worked closely with management from the golf course owned by the Swinomish Tribe over the last year to investigate tidal impacts to hole 5 at the Southern margin of the golf course. We developed concepts to reasonably reorient elements of the golf course impacted by the project. Site visits and concept scoping revealed the drainage from the course was perennial and more significant than initially understood. It is also largely ditched and piped. We determined that daylighting and naturally meandering this small coastal stream and provides important additional habitat associated with the pocket estuary and salinity gradients. The final design phase of this project will expand the restoration footprint into the freshwater drainage of the golf course and refine habitat and transportation designs. Transportation designs include a 100ft long bridge over the channel and early transportation orientations based on standard criteria for approaches, slopes, and sightlines. This was sufficient to provide a rough order of magnitude cost and conceptualize project limitations and confirm the likely alternative. This transportation design also served as a foundation for initiating discussions with Skagit County's Public Works department to determine how to proceed with the design and permitting the changes required to Satterlee Road. This project also initiated outreach with the local community to provide information and collect feedback. This included developing a website (www.similkrestoration.com) and holding 2 virtual community meetings. We initiated a groundwater study in late 2022 to determine potential changes to groundwater dynamics and if those changes could impact a limited number of low elevation septic drain fields adjacent to the project area. Installation of groundwater monitoring wells and piezometers was planned for Spring 2023.