Watershed planning

Watershed planning under the Streamflow Restoration Act supports local solutions to improve streamflows and secures water for new rural homes.

We collaborated with planning groups in 15 watersheds to develop watershed plans that help enhance streams for fish and offset impacts from new domestic permit-exempt wells. We adopted nine watershed plans and one rule.

Watershed draft plans submitted for technical review

Watershed planning continues for five watersheds or Water Resource Inventory Areas (WRIA). We prepared final draft watershed plans for WRIAs 7, 8, 13, 14, and 15 and submitted them to the Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SRFB) for their technical review. The SRFB will send us any recommendations by October 1, 2023.

You can review the five final draft plans sent to the SRFB:

Watershed plan implementation for completed plans

Read our assessments for ten watersheds where planning is complete:

WRIA 1 (Nooksack) WRIA 11 (Nisqually) WRIA 49 (Okanogan)
WRIA 9 (Duwamish-Green) WRIA 12 (Chambers-Clover) WRIA 55 (Little Spokane)
WRIA 10 (Puyallup-White) WRIAs 22 and 23 (Chehalis) WRIA 59 (Colville)

Learn about what happened in the local planning process from 2018 to 2021 in 15 watersheds by opening any of the sections below: