Wednesday April 6, 2022
Yakima Herald-Republic —
The largest habitat restoration project along the lower Columbia River is coming to a close this spring.
The Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge, east of Washougal in Clark County, is slated to reopen May 1 after almost two years of being intermittently closed to the public.
The roughly $31 million project to decrease flooding and increase salmon and steelhead migration was funded, in part, by the Bonneville Power Administration, the Washington Department of Ecology, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bonneville Environmental Foundation.
Updates included removing a levee that separated the Columbia River from nearby Gibbons Creek, which officials say reopened a natural pathway for salmon and steelhead migration and will prevent the creek from flooding, the Daily News reported.