Scott Boyd wades through sticky mud where the Stillaguamish River meets Puget Sound north of Seattle. In October the Stillaguamish Tribe breached two miles of an earthen levee that had kept tide and river water off adjacent farmland for more than a century. When an excavator cut the ridge, tidewater flowed across fields for the first time in generations, creating a new 230-acre tidal marsh the tribe calls zis a ba 2 — the second of three large restorations at the river mouth.
What had been a dairy operation quickly began to function like a natural estuary. Boyd, a tribal member and deputy fisheries manager, says these tidal marshes are crucial nurseries for young Chinook salmon — the region’s largest, culturally important salmon species. Puget Sound Chinook are federally listed as threatened, and tribal leaders say restoring habitat is essential to any recovery.
Over the past 15 years the roughly 400-person tribe, whose official reservation is under 100 acres, has purchased about 2,000 acres in its traditional territory to restore fish and wildlife habitat. Under the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott the Stillaguamish and other tribes ceded most lands but retained hunting and fishing rights. Boyd calls it “a bit of a bitter pill” to buy back land his people once gave up, but says this is the practical work the tribe can now do to help salmon rebound.
Restoration crews prepared the farmland before removing the berm, digging channels to speed tidal flow and marsh formation. Workers uncovered ancient middens — heaps of fire-charred clam shells — dating back as much as 1,500 years, evidence of long human use of the estuary. Within days of the breach shorebirds such as dunlins converged, probing newly exposed mudflats; Stillaguamish biologist Jason Griffith described their arrival as a striking natural spectacle.
The timing coincided with an unusually volatile flood season. In December a series of storms scoured the area, uprooting trees and depositing sediment that can help a nascent wetland mature. Those storms caused widespread flooding across Washington and Oregon; the state’s governor called the December events the costliest natural disaster in Washington. FEMA approved a major-disaster declaration for recovery but denied some requests for future flood mitigation funding.
Tribal officials argue that restoring floodplain wetlands benefits people as well as salmon. By giving the river more space to spread during high flows, restored wetlands can dissipate surges before they reach towns and infrastructure. Before removing the old riverfront berm, the tribe and partners built a new levee farther inland — about four feet taller than the original — intended to better protect farms and communities from larger floods and rising seas.
Still, converting farmland back to marsh involves tradeoffs. Farmers along the Stillaguamish depend on levees to keep fields dry. Fifth-generation farmer Tyler Breum grows potatoes and seed crops a few miles north of the new wetlands and says levees “make life in the floodplain possible.” He spent an anxious night riding an all-terrain vehicle along a levee during the December floods after a 2021 event left a hole in a century-old dike. A Snohomish County study found that if that levee failed, roughly 1,100 people could be displaced.
Some farmers tried to buy parcels the tribe purchased but were outbid. Breum says he doesn’t hold that against the tribe and supports levee removals that also protect farmers; neighbors near the project now have a new, higher inland dike. City and tribal officials are pursuing emergency permits to repair other aging levees ahead of future high tides and storms.
The Stillaguamish have restored hundreds of acres so far and aim to restore thousands — roughly the scale scientists say will be needed to help Puget Sound Chinook recover. For tribal members, the work is about culture and continuity as much as ecology. Boyd recalls his great-grandfather fishing these waters to eke out a living and says he hopes his four young children will one day be able to fish, live and work here as their ancestors did.