Environment Indigenous Affairs Politics Transportation New $5B plan to fund culvert removals unveiled by WA senators
Washington state senators revealed a proposal Monday to raise billions of dollars to pay for the court-ordered removal of culverts blocking the migration of salmon and other fish.
The plan included in the Senate’s capital budget would bond up to $5 billion over the next 15 years and repay the debt with revenue from an existing tax on electrical utilities.
That’s at least how much lawmakers believe the state still needs to fully fund culvert removals in light of a decades-spanning court case in which a federal judge ruled in 2013 that the state had violated tribes’ treaty fishing rights.
The judge ordered an injunction forcing the state to pay to correct its barriers that impede salmon and steelhead migration in western Washington. In a tied vote in 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ruling.
https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2025/03/31/new-5b-plan-to-fund-culvert-removals-unveiled-by-wa-senators/