IMCO's Fir Island Farm Estuary Restoration Project Received the Gold Award for Water Resources

Daily Journal of Commerce article

A link to the full article can be found here.

"The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife partnered with Shannon & Wilson and IMCO General Construction to provide a feasibility study, design and permitting, public outreach and construction of the Fir Island farm estuary. The project team delivered a large-scale, highly complex habitat restoration, coastal flood protection and drainage project that balances the needs of fish, farmers, flooding and snow geese on the Skagit River delta.

A key challenge with estuary restoration, particularly in the Skagit River delta, is that the areas most important for chinook salmon are also some of the most agriculturally productive farmlands in the world, supporting up to 80 different crop varieties and serving as a worldwide producer of vegetable seeds. Much of the farmland, however, is subtidal and reliant on a complex system of dikes and drainage infrastructure, presenting quite a challenge to engineers tasked with rebuilding the estuary for wildlife.

The project design elements included a mile-long levee setback, a 9,000 gallons-per-minute automated pump station, five tide gates, a 50-acre storage pond, and restoration of 130 acres of tidal marsh and estuary habitat critical for juvenile chinook recovery. The project is expected to increase juvenile chinook smolt to between 65,000 and 350,000 each year."