Our own Stan Allen, Pacific Marine Fisheries Commission, was awarded the Stanley A. Moberly Award for Outstanding Contributions in Fish Habitat Conservation at the 2024 American Fisheries Society meeting in Honolulu, Hawai’i. The award was established in 2019 to annually recognize efforts of individuals, groups, or projects with an outstanding, long-term record of success in research, management, policy, communications, education, or other fields that support fish habitat conservation.

Stan has had a long and distinguished career in fisheries starting with Idaho Department of Fish and Game in 1980 as a Biological Aid and working up to the Information Resource Data Manager, where he was responsible for building a consistent and verifiable river database. This work resulted in the protection of over 40,000 miles of streams in the Columbia River Basin from additional hydropower development. Stan has worked at the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission since the 1990’s and has been a Senior Program Manager for 31+ years. His work has included the development of the CalFish system to support habitat efforts for anadromous fish and development of StreamNet, a cooperative data effort that has been the foundation for the support of fish conservation in the Pacific Northwest. He has also managed countless fisheries projects, currently including 80 projects with 150-175 employees, such as the reintroduction of salmonids in California Central Valley tributaries, the Klamath River watershed rehabilitation, and Pacific Coast, in particular in California, fish passage barrier identification, removal, and mitigation. He is a long-time National Fish Habitat (NFHP) Board member and now is the Vice Chair of the Board, ensuring NFHP continues its incredible fish habitat conservation work. Stan has been an active member of PMEP committees since PMEP was initally formed as a fish habitat partnership in 2012.

The PMEP-funded project, Zangle Cove Bulkhead Removal, was named a National Fish Habitat Partnership 2024 Waters to Watch Project. Managed by the Thurston Conservation Districti, this project removed  200 linear foot of bulkhead along the marine shoreline of South Puget Sound. The project restored spawning habitat for beach spawning fish (e.g., surf smelt and sand lance), restored shoreline sediment transport processes, and restored shoreline riparian vegetation providing multi-species benefits. The project was implemented on private residential waterfront property near Olympia, Washington. It is an important example of regional work underway to reduce harm from hard armoring on private waterfront property throughout Puget Sound. Numerous organizations are operating under the umbrella of the Shore Friendly program, supported by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Estuary and Salmon Restoration Program and other partners. The Shore Friendly program is a multi-organizational effort that aims to motivate residents living on marine shorelines to remove bulkheads and preserve natural shorelines, in order to support recovery of Puget Sound’s salmon and orca populations (among other species). Shore Friendly promotes a shoreline stewardship ethic that embraces natural coastal processes that support nearshore ecology.

Deadline for proposal submission is December 2, 2024.

PMEP will award an estimated $250,000-$350,000 in FY2026 for projects that advance its mission. The exact amount of funding available varies annually and is not known at this time. In an effort to fund a diverse portfolio of projects, strong project proposals that request less than $100,000 are preferred. However, proposals of particular merit may be funded at a higher level, at PMEP’s discretion.

PMEP is seeking project proposals that restore, enhance, and protect habitats for fish within estuarine and nearshore marine systems or that increase understanding of fish habitats in estuarine and nearshore habitats along the U.S. West Coast (Washington, Oregon, and California).

For nearshore-focused projects, priority will be given to assessment and restoration projects that address critical challenges to nearshore marine habitats, with a focus on habitats such as kelp forests, seagrass, rocky reefs, biogenic structure (native oysters, sand dollar beds, tube worm reefs), and intertidal and beach spawning habitat. Projects must also clearly identify benefit to fish species.

For estuary-focused projects, priority will be given to projects benefiting smaller estuarine systems defined as having an Estuary Size Class of 0-250 acres in the PMEP Estuary Explorer data tool http://estuaries.pacificfishhabitat.org/explore. However, worthy projects that benefit larger estuarine or nearshore systems will still be considered. Estuary projects must demonstrate benefits to PMEP focal species.

Find the full Request for Proposals and application instructions HERE.

These half-day symposiums are the second and third in a series of virtual symposiums bringing together experts in the field of estuary restoration along the U.S. West Coast to explore effective estuary restoration topics.

2025 symposium will explore:

• Blue Carbon in the context of fish habitat
• Data and monitoring protocols and guidance
• Collaborative platforms for restoration practitioners.

The symposiums are designed to support estuary restoration practitioners and will include opportunities to share techniques, ask questions, and build a community of practice.

PMEP’s new West Coast Estuary and Nearshore Habitat Viewer is available now. Launched at the recent American Fisheries Society meeting, this new interactive tool combines our estuary datasets with our new nearshore habitat datasets into one easy-to-use platform. The Viewer supports users importing their own spatial data as well as data readily available at ArcGIS Online. Combine these with the PMEP data layers to compare, overlay, and synthesize information to support resource management, habitat conservation and restoration goal setting. PMEP data layers are also available for download. Find the Viewer and PMEP data HERE.

Come learn about PMEP and other fish habitat partnerships around the country at the American Fisheries Society meeting in Honolulu. We’ll be participating in a symposium Tuesday highlighting the National Fish Habitat Partnership and multiple fish habitat partnerships. The session, Local, Regional, and National Collaboration to Conserve Aquatic Habitats, runs all day in room 307AB.

PMEP is proud to support the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe’s Biological Assessment of the Ediz Hook Lagoon with funding from the National Fish Habitat Partnership. The Tribe will conduct field surveys to determine fish and shellfish use of a 28-acre estuarine lagoon at the base of Ediz Hook in Port Angeles, Washington. The project will provide an assessment of what species (fish and shellfish) are present in the lagoon, along with continuous water quality data to inform future restoration/clean-up activities.

PMEP is thrilled to provide FY24 National Fish Habitat Partnership funding to the Midcoast Watersheds Council to complete the design of its Bayview Oxbow Tidal Restoration in Alsea Bay, Oregon. When constructed this project will restore tidal conditions to one half of an old oxbow of the Alsea River, restoring about 34% of the tidal wetlands that have been lost. It is one of the largest (75 acre) remaining restoration sites on the Alsea.

PMEP is thrilled to announce the completion of our latest assessment report Restoring Tidal Swamps in the U.S. Pacific Northwest: Information for Restoration Practitioners. Tidal swamps were historically common in the Pacific Northwest but are now rare, having been lost at greater rates than other types of tidal wetlands in many areas. This report provides information on early efforts in the emerging field of tidal swamp restoration, including documentation of 14 active tidal swamp restoration projects in the Pacific Northwest. The report provides an overview of the ecological importance of tidal swamps, the importance of restoring these valuable habitats, and unique challenges that practitioners should consider when approaching their restoration. The report includes information on reference site selection, elevated platforms, reed canarygrass control, large woody debris and channel design, beaver monitoring, and effectiveness monitoring. Find the full report HERE.

In 2020, PMEP commissioned a report Eelgrass Restoratin on the U.S. West Coast: A comprehensive Assessment fo Restoration Techniques and Their Outcomes.  The report synthesize eelgrass restoration project successes along the U.S. West Coast and identifies best practices for eelgrass restoration and mitigation. PMEP created a webpage summarizing the synthesis findings and providing guidance for eelgrass restoration practitioners. Drs. Melissa Ward and Kathryn Behishti conducted the reveiw and recently published their findings. Their paper,”Lessons learned from over thirty years of eelgrass retoration on the U.S. west coast” was published in Ecosphere and can be  found HERE. The project was supported by Pew Charitable Trusts.