On August 16, 2023, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced a $196 million investment to 59 Tribal, state, and local governments for repairing or removing 169 culvert barriers and enhancing fish passage across freshwater waterways.
"In communities across the country where people depend on fishing for their livelihoods, culverts are vital infrastructure for ensuring fish passage," U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. "Through this investment, we are repairing or removing hundreds of culverts nationwide, protecting jobs, mitigating the risk of flooding, and strengthening local economies.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced a significant investment of $196 million in funding to 59 Tribal, state, and local governments. This investment is directed towards the repair or removal of 169 culvert barriers in order to improve fish passage across various freshwater waterways.
The funding is part of the FHWA’s Culvert Aquatic Organism Passage (AOP) Program, aimed at enhancing healthy fisheries. It will allow communities to remove, repair, and redesign culverts and weirs, the engineered structures that influence water flow in rivers and streams. The improvement of fish passage is a critical ecological need, especially for anadromous fish such as native salmon, steelhead, river herring, and lamprey. These species are born in freshwater streams, live predominantly in the ocean, and then return to freshwater to spawn. Barriers in their migratory paths have been identified as a major cause of their declining populations.
The grants announced are set to improve approximately 550 miles of stream habitat in key ecosystems including Yakutat Bay, the Puget Sound, the Columbia River, the Rogue River, the Chesapeake Bay, and Plymouth Harbor. Several fish species listed under the federal Endangered Species Act will benefit from this project, thanks to the access to pristine habitat provided by restored passage.
The 59 awards for the fiscal year 2022 were dispersed across 10 states and included all 14 Tribal governments that applied, according to a recent press release. A detailed breakdown of the funding highlights that Alaska, Oregon, Washington, and Maine have the most extensive projects planned. Among them, Alaska and Washington have marked substantial commitments with 45 or more projects planned each, receiving funding awards of $44,087,431 and $58,218,424, respectively. The total funding awarded amounted to $195,877,358 for all 169 projects.
