For release: February 10, 2025
Contact: Cheyne Mayer, Lead Entity Coordinator
leadentity@ybfwrb.org / (509) 654-7056
Yakima Basin seeks Salmon Recovery Project Proposals
The Yakima Basin Fish and Wildlife Recovery Board (the Recovery Board) is pleased to announce the opening of its 2025 grant round for projects to help recover at-risk salmon, steelhead, and bull trout populations in the Yakima Basin. This year, the Recovery Board is seeking project proposals for three grant programs: one for general habitat recovery projects; a second specifically for riparian recovery projects; and a third, new program for monitoring projects.
The Recovery Board anticipates having $1.5-$2 million available for the general grant program and $1.1-$2.6 million available for the riparian grant program. (“Riparian” refers to the bank of a stream or other body of water, including the floodplain; these areas directly affect in-stream habitat conditions for fish.) The monitoring grant program is a statewide competition that will accept up to two projects from the Recovery Board of up to $300,000 each.
“It’s looking like an above average year for salmon recovery funding,” said Cheyne Mayer, Lead Entity Coordinator for the Recovery Board. “We didn’t use to have the riparian program, and now we have funding dedicated to monitoring too. This is great news for everyone—for our endangered fish of course, but also for our broader ecosystems which hinge on healthy salmon populations, and for our local economy. Recovering salmon is vital for our way of life here in Central Washington.”
All three grant programs are run through Washington State’s Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SRFB), which has awarded grants for salmon recovery every year since 1999. The local grant review process is coordinated by the Recovery Board, which serves as the “Lead Entity” for the Yakima Basin. Lead Entities are community-based salmon recovery organizations working across the state of Washington to protect and restore fish species listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).
While each of the 25 Lead Entities operate a little differently, they all partner with community leaders and technical experts to review grant proposals. These volunteers serve on committees and offer their combined local knowledge to evaluate projects on both scientific merit and socio-economic considerations.
In the Yakima Basin, our technical review committee brings local experts together to evaluate and prioritize projects based on how well they implement the Recovery Board’s regional recovery plans for steelhead and bull trout, species which are listed as threatened under the ESA. Our citizen committee is set up to have equal representation from all three of the Basin’s counties (Benton, Kittitas, and Yakima) and the Yakama Nation.
The general and riparian grant programs will follow this local grant review process, while the new monitoring grant program will follow a different process because it is a statewide competition. It will still involve a local committee though—a new “monitoring committee” composed of local technical and monitoring experts.
“Monitoring is key to ensuring we’re spending recovery funding effectively, and this is a really exciting step forward for monitoring funding in the basin,” said Alex Conley, Executive Director for the Recovery Board. “We’re looking forward to submitting strong projects and showing that this program should be renewed and expanded.”
Pre-applications for the general and riparian grant programs are due by February 28, 2025, and the deadline for full proposals is April 7, 2025. Letters of Intent for the monitoring grant program are due by February 21, 2025, and the deadline for full proposals is May 1, 2025. Please visit the Recovery Board website and review the Request for Proposals and Monitoring Request for Proposals for more information. Please contact Cheyne Mayer, Recovery Board Lead Entity Coordinator, at leadentity@ybfwrb.org or (509) 654-7056 with any questions.