Welcome to The Newsfeed.

We're here along the Stillaguamish River, on the site of a massive salmon restoration project in Stanwood.

We're talking to the experts behind this project to bring Chinook salmon back from the brink of extinction.

-It's probably smoother walking, like right here.

-More than a decade ago, the Stillaguamish Tribe began a journey to help save federally threatened Chinook salmon, a species of historical and cultural significance to them.

The tribe bought back farmland to transform into wetlands that the fish haven't swam in for more than a century.

Stillaguamish Tribal member Scott Boyd is pleased with the progress.

-It's amazing.

It took decades to get to this point where we could acquire sufficient land base to implement these types of projects and to see in the first spring since it's been open to already see those, successful markers.

It's really encouraging for the tribe.

So we're thrilled.

-The tribe's environmental program manager, Jason Griffith, says the overall project spans about 850 acres, split into three phases.

In 2017, construction of the first phase started called Zis a Ba I, named after a Stillaguamish chief.

It transformed more than 90 acres into a marsh.

Last summer, an even larger Zis a Ba II took over more than 200 acres of land, restoring the habitat for fish and wildlife.

-So Chinook salmon, when they're coming out, from the river to the sea, they spend several months down here in these marshes gaining size before they head off shore.

And if they don't get big enough, they can get eaten by larger predators.

And so these marshes serve as a spot, a stopover to gain the size they need to survive in the ocean.

And the three stages of the project that we're working on, we're standing here at Zis a Ba, phase two, which is 230 acres that we restored last summer in 2025.

It's part of an overall 850 acre project.

-What role does flooding play in this project?

-So flooding is part of the natural, you know, function of a river.

Those natural processes like flooding, create and sustain salmon habitat over time.

And so by allowing flood energy to spread out across the landscape, it's often less harmful than if you're concentrating it right in the river channel.

And so part of this project is allowing that energy to spread out and create salmon habitat over a larger footprint in a less harmful way... To what would be if you channelized and concentrated that flood energy.

-Jason, you're already starting to see some benefits from the project.

Tell us what you're noticing out here.

-So we started noticing waterfowl and shorebirds in areas that we didn't see them before the project.

And then as the months went on and the Chinook salmon started coming out of the gravel and working their way down the river, we started to see them inside the site.

And these are marshes, that had been cut off for 140 years.

-Properties like this that have been farmed for well over 100 years.

You expect to find some level of contamination.

So it's not just the goal of the Stillaguamish Tribe to restore these lands to their ecological function, but it's also to ensure that the water and the land is free of toxics.

That way, future generations of salmon that visit these waters can survive healthily.

-Boyd has his eyes set on what the Chinook recovery could mean for generations to come.

-Hopefully continue to see those positive signs and, pay it forward to the future generations.

Because, yeah, I have four young children and I would love to see them be able to fish out here and, and have a healthy environment.

-I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching The Newsfeed, your destination for nonprofit Northwest News.