RCO project # 12-1639, "Touchet River Baileysburg Restoration Design", submitted by the city of Dayton, was funded in 2012 with the objective of finalizing restoration plans to improve salmon habitat on a half-mile stretch of the North Fork Touchet River in Dayton, WA. This stretch of the river is owned by 5 private landowners. While landowners expressed interest in the project, they also asked the Snake River Salmon Recovery office in Dayton if any compensation was available for protecting the restored habitat and for their loss of land use on their property impacted by channel restoration. This easement assessment was intended to dove-tail with the design to ensure that all the funds and resources invested in design and subsequent implementation of the salmon habitat restoration project would be protected in perpetuity. Summer steelhead, spring Chinook, and Bull Trout were expected to benefit from this protection. Blue Mountain Land Trust (BMLT) staff worked with 3 landowners (of the 5 possible properties) to complete the steps necessary for all parties involved to determine if a conservation easement is feasible and desirable. BMLT worked with the three landowners to determine the terms and boundaries for proposed conservation easements on their properties, including negotiation of reserved rights and prohibited uses of their land within the easement and maps that would show easement boundaries. BMLT conducted title searches on all three properties to determine what encumbrances might be on the properties already and how that might affect perpetual conservation easement. They completed appraisals of two properties and a review appraisal for one of the two properties to determine firm costs for purchasing the proposed conservation easements. The third landowner chose not to participate. Unfortunately, all three landowners have declined to move forward with conservation easements on their properties.