Five years after its completion, the restoration project that reconnected Oak Bay and Kilisut Harbor’s Scow Bay, between Indian and Marrowstone islands, is a significant environmental success story.

The natural ecosystem that existed before the construction of the previous land bridge, that blocked the waterway in the 1940s, has returned, and with it, a thriving habitat for juvenile salmon, migratory birds and eelgrass meadows.

However, similar projects face tougher odds, due to reductions in federal funding, according to Rebecca Benjamin, former executive director of the North Olympic Salmon Coalition (NOSC).

Benjamin and other members of NOSC spoke to attendees of a June 26 community tour at Marrowstone Vineyards, explaining that such projects require “two colors of money,” state and federal.

For groups such as NOSC to receive state funds, they’re typically required to receive federal funds as well, so as Benjamin said, “You have to have both colors of money.”

NOSC Project Manager Kevin Long explained that those funds allow NOSC to write grant applications, touting the millions of dollars of grant funds that can be yielded, for projects such as the current 440-foot Kilisut Harbor bridge, from investing comparatively fewer thousands of dollars into grant-writing.

Addressing a number of similar culvert corrections that are being performed by the state Department of Transportation in Clallam County, Long acknowledged that those could still leave barriers to fish migration, since those are issues that he said the DOT can’t fix on their own.

Long cited this as among the reasons why partners such as NOSC are needed, “because it shouldn’t take lawsuits from the tribes to get these things done.”

While the Kilisut Harbor bridge construction and attendant environmental restoration cost nearly $13 million at the time, Long estimated it could have run as much as $20 million if done today.

He touted both the anticipated 100-year lifespan of the bridge and the stability of the waterway’s reconnection.

By restoring the natural ecosystem that had already existed beforehand, Long reported that the once-blocked waterway has again become a thriving habitat for juvenile salmon, migratory birds and eelgrass meadows.

Benjamin asserted that the Marrowstone Island community as a whole now benefits from a safer causeway, connecting it to Indian Island and the mainland beyond, since the new bridge has been designed to better withstand earthquakes and sea level rises.

And for Ralph W. Riccio, owner and operator of the Moonlight Oyster Co. on Marrowstone Island, the waterway reconnection means “job security,” because he’s able to harvest oysters from cleaner, healthier waters, yielding shellfish that’s safer to eat.

Long noted that the state Department of Health has been monitoring for Paralytic Shellfish Poison (PSP) levels, but has found that “they’re not as high, and they don’t last as long.”

Long referred to research spearheaded by the U.S. Geological Survey, and conducted by eighth-grade students, who performed fish-sampling on Indian Island, and found that fish counts “exploded” starting in 2022, two years after the bridge and surrounding restoration work were completed in 2020.

“Not just fish, but more species are using this area now,” Long said. “There’d been some concerns that this project might hurt the invertebrate population, but it’s also exploded.”

Long also referred to research by the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, showing that lower water temperatures have circulated throughout a broader cross-section of Kilisut Harbor than had been anticipated.

This hard scientific evidence came after the admittedly more anecdotal testimony of John Buckland, a neighbor to the waterway, who offered his personal account, complete with video, of the increasing water flow and proliferation of species in Kilisut Harbor, from mussels, tube worms and seaweed to sea stars, anemones and crabs.

“I’ve spotted a family of six river otters, along with deer swimming by,” Buckland said. “It’s just totally transformed.”