Blackbird Island Channel was a habitat channel creation project. Salmon and steelhead habitat was created by digging a half-mile groundwater-fed, fish-rearing channel and several rearing ponds adjacent and draining to the Wenatchee River. About $265,000 in SRFB grants have been used to create the habitat, including an extensive spring high flow and flood refuge area and new aquatic food production and shade zones. This project will added critical instream habitat (i.e. large rocks, logs, rootwads, and aquatic vegetation) and completely restored an important riparian and wetland system along the created 1/2 mile of high quality off-channel salmon and steelhead spawning and rearing habit adjacent to the mainstem Wenatchee River near Leavenworth (a joint salmon and steelhead restoration project between WDFW, Trout Unlimited, the City of Leavenworth and others). Approximately 1/2 mile of old river terrace and relic stream channel was excavated to a depth that allows groundwater percolation and flow to enter and fill the old channel, until exiting via surface water flows to the mainstem Wenatchee River 1/2 mile downstream. Additional instream fish habitat structures (large rocks, logs, rootwads) as well as both instream wetlands and aquatic vegetation plantings, plus hydroseeding of native erosion control grasses and the planting of native woody vegetation are still a critical need to make this a state of the art model salmonid habitat restoration project.