Voluntary Stewardship in Skagit County
Searching for the Sweet Spots with Voluntary Stewardship Programs
For more than a century, farmers have turned the Skagit landscape into famously productive farmland that takes advantage of the rich soil found here. Across the Skagit and Samish deltas, farmers depend on the diking, drainage, and irrigation districts to keep the complex water system working for farms.
Throughout Skagit County, river systems also provide critical habitat for salmon. Balancing the needs of these resources—farms and fish—sometimes taxes residents’ patience. Yet legal requirements and moral obligations demand cooperation to help recover salmon by improving habitat. One of the best solutions for achieving this balance comes through voluntary stewardship programs, or VSP.
VSP’s history goes back decades. The State of Washington passed the Growth Management Act in 1990 and has amended it many times in the years since. It establishes so-called critical areas to “preserve or enhance anadromous fisheries.” From the beginning, the law incentivized voluntary protection, but in 2011 the state explicitly added VSP. Skagit County joined those efforts right away.
Meeting Shared Goals
To produce win-win scenarios, VSP aims to be collaborative and flexible, as well as making progress toward shared goals.
This is something David Olson appreciates. As a commissioner with Skagit County Dike District #03 (the heart of which is west of the South Fork Skagit River), Olson’s focus is to manage the district. But when the possibility arises for projects that provide mutual benefits for the drainage district and anadromous fish, the district is “more than willing to work” on them, said Olson. He notes that VSP helps “look for opportunities to make improvements.” He used examples of levee setbacks in 2003 and the Fisher Slough restoration (completed in 2011) as examples where money available for improving fish habitat could also be used on projects that helped the district meet its mandates, too.
Win-win is what VSP is all about, or what Michael Frazier, the executive director of Viva Farms, calls sweet spots.
“If you approach farmers . . . and try and find sweet spots and create some flexibility where it can make sense, farmers are willing to do the work,” said Frazier.
Making Progress
Voluntary stewardship is not new in Skagit County. It takes many forms and includes multiple stakeholders. Those stakeholders include not only local landowners but both state and federal government agencies, as well as tribal governments. The regulatory rules and laws around water and fish are complicated. VSP can help smooth this complexity and help provide some stability.
That is part of what the Drainage and Fish Initiative (DFI) and Tidegates and Fish Initiative (TFI) try to accomplish. These programs include agreements to guide maintenance operations for drainage and tidegate infrastructure and improve both drainage and stream health.
The dike and drainage districts that contain natural streams have worked to improve both drainage and streams. For example, culverts have been replaced. Plantings to enhance habitat have gone in within riparian areas, and invasive species have been removed. Measures to stabilize streambanks have been adopted. The TFI explicitly agreed that up to 2,700 acres of estuarine habitat could be restored to help meet smolt production goals. Many programs are located further up the watershed, but DFI and TFI help make progress in the Skagit and Samish deltas.
By some metrics, progress is being made. According to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Skagit estuary restoration projects hit 35% of the recovery goal by 2021 with some sites resulting in far greater improvement than expected. These examples also show that voluntary projects work.
Being Site-Specific, Voluntary, and Collaborative
The ability to fashion plans that are site specific is another favorable element of VSP. Most ditches do not provide fish habitat, for instance, so blanket standards work poorly across the landscape. Through VSP, careful attention to the unique site conditions can help farmers and the dike and drainage districts develop projects that do not impair their ability to maintain infrastructure and can improve salmon habitat where it is a priority.
The voluntary nature of VSP is appealing, even necessary. “One important thing,” said Olson, “is it all being voluntary.” Similar to salmon recovery habitat restoration efforts, VSP depends on willing landowners.
Several years ago, Viva Farms saw an opportunity to partner with several groups—Skagit County Conservation District, Port of Skagit, and Western Washington Agricultural Association—to clean a waterway that flowed through one of its parcels, including planting native species.
The partnerships were critical for the labor and expertise they provided. But the VSP helped forge relationships that led to later opportunities for Viva Farms to work with those partners. In this way, VSP can help strengthen community.
The farmers that Viva Farms works with “take care of the community,” Frazier said, “the physical community of the farmland, but also the people that live here. They’re land stewards.” Beside him, illustrating the point, the plants have grown tall and are shading the riparian area and offering habitat for birds and other living things.
Looking Ahead
“Voluntary” does not mean free, and tax dollars help fund the program. In the most recent legislative session, Skagit County received $1 million to support VSP, a welcome boost to the program. This investment could lead to more riparian restoration and promote collaboration to find effective and balanced ways to improve resource quality for soil and salmon, a high priority across the region.
Jenna Friebel, the executive director of the Skagit Drainage and Irrigation Districts Consortium, thinks about these issues a lot because of the commissioners she works for and because she is a hydrologist. She hopes to see progress with VSP and have that produce some certainty for the future. “Conflict’s not good for anybody, and we need to have a common goal here,” said Friebel. “We need a goal that reflects everybody’s values and that we can work cooperatively.”
That hope is the state’s and county’s hope, too. For farmers like those of Viva Farms, having their products certified salmon safe offers a premium, too.
Through VSP, cooperation can meet habitat goals and allow agriculture to maintain and improve its long-term prospects.
By Adam Sowards: info@skagitonians.org