In October the Stillaguamish Tribe breached two miles of an earthen levee where the Stillaguamish River meets Puget Sound. An excavator cut the ridge that for more than a century had kept tidewater off adjacent fields, and the bay returned for the first time in over 100 years. The change created a new 230-acre tidal marsh at a site now called zis a ba 2.
For the roughly 400-member tribe, the project is part of a long-term effort to buy back and restore riverfront land in their traditional territory. Since gaining federal recognition in 1976, the Stillaguamish have purchased about 2,000 acres over the past 15 years for fish and wildlife habitat. Their goal: rebuild floodplain and rearing habitat critical to Chinook salmon, a species listed as threatened in the Puget Sound region.
Tidal marshes are vital nurseries for juvenile Chinook. After decades of habitat loss, returns are dangerously low—so few Chinook returned to the Stillaguamish River in 2025 that the tribe was allowed to catch only 26 fish. Restoring tidal marsh and side channels is intended to give young salmon places to feed, hide and grow before heading to sea.
Crews prepared the site before the breach by digging channels to guide tides inland. During the work they uncovered ancient middens—piles of fire-charred clam shells—dating back as much as 1,500 years, evidence of long human use of the estuary. Shorebirds such as dunlins have already moved in, and floods this winter delivered uprooted trees and fresh sediment that are helping the marsh reestablish.
The landscape shifted again in December when a string of intense storms scoured and reshaped parts of the new wetland. Washington’s governor called those floods the state’s costliest natural disaster, and FEMA approved a major-disaster declaration for recovery in Washington and Oregon while denying a request for funds specifically to reduce future flood damage.
Tribal leaders emphasize that restoration can reduce flood risk for people as well as restore habitat. Instead of leaving the old levee in place, the tribe built a new dike set farther back and roughly four feet taller before removing the old ridge. That gives the river room to spread, letting surges dissipate across the floodplain rather than concentrate against infrastructure. “By giving the river more space, we are reducing the damage and the expense to society to maintain infrastructure,” says Stillaguamish biologist Jason Griffith, noting that set-back levees can be cheaper to maintain over time.
But returning tidal flows means tradeoffs on densely used lowland. Farmers and the tribe want different things from the same ground. Tyler Breum, a fifth-generation farmer near Stanwood, says levees have made farming the floodplain possible and that aging dikes are a constant concern. During the December storms he spent a nervous night riding a levee near his farm. He and his partners tried to buy the property at zis a ba 2 but were outbid by the tribe. He does not fault the tribe’s purchases and supports some levee removals when farmers benefit; he notes that in the area where the tribe restored marsh, farmers received what he calls a “brand new, world-class dike.”
Local officials and tribal leaders have sought emergency permits to repair other damaged levee stretches ahead of future storms and high tides. With climate change expected to bring more intense storms, higher tides and rising seas, both levee maintenance and strategic restoration are increasingly urgent.
The Stillaguamish have restored hundreds of acres so far and plan to restore many more. Scientists say thousands of acres of recovered floodplain and tidal marsh will be needed for Puget Sound Chinook to rebound and ultimately be removed from the threatened list. For tribal members such as Scott Boyd, a deputy fisheries manager and descendant of local fishers, the work is about culture and future generations. “These habitat projects are the best bang for our buck right now,” he says, framing restoration as central to rebuilding the resource the tribe reserved under the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott. Buying back and remaking parts of the landscape is, he adds, a bitter but necessary step to get things back on track for both people and salmon.