Quicksilver Portfolio: Restoring Puget Sound Steelhead & Fisheries (2024)

In the 2021-23 biennium budget, the Washington State Legislature allocated $1.68 million, known as the “Quicksilver Proviso,” on a onetime basis, to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). This funding was intended to begin implementing recommendations from the Quicksilver Portfolio, a framework developed between 2017 and 2020 by the Puget Sound Steelhead Advisory Group (PSSAG) and WDFW to restore Puget Sound steelhead and fisheries.

In the following legislative sessions, an additional $3.8 million was provided through the 2022 Supplemental Budget, effective July 1, 2022, under the “Freshwater Monitoring Proviso.” These funds expanded support for additional projects within the Quicksilver Portfolio.

For the 2023-25 biennium, the legislature once again funded the Quicksilver Proviso on a onetime basis, but with a slightly reduced allocation of $1.6 million. Simultaneously, the Freshwater Monitoring budget was carried forward at $6.5 million for the biennium, bringing the total funding for the two year period to $8.1 million. These resources support the monitoring of recreational salmon and steelhead harvests in streams and rivers throughout Puget Sound as well as along the Washington coast.

WDFW remains committed to implementing the Quicksilver Portfolio recommendations, along with other initiatives within the freshwater monitoring package for Puget Sound watersheds. This work is carried out in collaboration with co-manager tribes in the Puget Sound region, federal agencies, scientists, non-governmental organizations, and steelhead anglers and guides, following Washington’s Statewide Steelhead Management Plan. The projects currently funded by these provisos and implemented under the guidance of the Quicksilver Portfolio are outlined below.

Highlights of Quicksilver Portfolio work include:

• Increased monitoring of wild steelhead presence and spawning activity in the Nooksack, Samish, Skagit, Stillaguamish, and Snohomish watersheds to better understand their population status and run timing.
• Development of hydroacoustic/sonar and video monitoring tools on the Skagit, Samish, and Nooksack to gauge steelhead and salmon returns in real-time.
•  Initiation of a wild summer steelhead broodstock program and fishery on the Skykomish River to replace the prior hatchery program which used out-of-basin Skamania steelhead stock.
• Conducted catch and release fisheries for wild steelhead on the Skagit and Sauk rivers under a federally approved Resource Management Plan (RMP) valid from March 2023 through April 2032.