While the Legislature is rightly focused on meeting the state Supreme Court education funding mandate, there is another issue of judicial importance looming in the background: addressing the lack of ecological protections in our state’s transportation system.
Aquatic passageways under our roads and highways, known as culverts, are critical to Washington salmon being able to make their annual migration from the sea to their upriver spawning areas.
Right now there are 1,987 blocked or otherwise non-functioning culverts in our state highway system. While progress is being made – the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) cleared 285 passageways last year – it is not coming quickly enough.
A U.S. District Court judge ruled in 2013 that the state must rehabilitate more than 1000 additional culverts by 2030. He stated that the disrepair of these passageways is a violation of the tribal fishing rights of many of the tribes in our region. They depend on a strong, healthy salmon population, and depriving them of that is a breach of their treaty rights.
WSDOT estimates that the total cost of repairing the culverts to be upwards of $2.4 billion. Meeting the culvert ruling on time then would require $310 million per biennium.
With only $36 million included in the most recent transportation budget, it will take a much more aggressive approach to avoid admonishment – or worse – from the court on this issue.