A program that helps people restore their private riverbanks is accepting applications through the end of September. The matching grants are administered by state and federal wildlife agencies with the goal of empowering people to be proactive about rehabilitating and sustaining salmon habitat.
Chug the black-and-white basset hound mutt leads the way. His owners Craig and Virginia Curry follow, walking through their backyard to a staircase that drops dramatically to the turquoise Kenai River.
Before last summer, they estimate their riverbank retreated between four and five inches per year. When the water level would drop in the fall, it revealed their riverbank was caving in under a ledge poised for collapse.
“When the river would go out, we would go and you know clean up around – people get fish line caught – and we noticed that the water was washing away underneath the bank,” she said. “So our bank literally was here with this big gap.”
That’s when the Currys applied for help.
The Streambank and Shoreline Rehabilitation and Protection Program started three decades ago on the Kenai Peninsula and is now offered in multiple parts of the state. It’s a grant-funded cost-share program jointly administered by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services.
Each year, the program offers financial aid to private riverfront property owners who want to restore their banks and help salmon in the process.
Maura Schumacher is a fish biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and helps administer the program. She says lush banks go a long way toward healthy salmon.
“It's going to provide shade to keep them cool when the sun is out in the summer,” she said. “It's going to provide food because insects live in that vegetation; they fall off of the vegetation into the water, so the little baby salmon are able to, you know, have a great diverse diet in these vegetated stream banks.”
That’s not to mention a decrease in water quality when clumps of sediment fall into the water, and when a lack of roots send unfiltered pollutants into the river via rainwater.
To look at the Currys’ bank now, it’s tough to picture it ever retreating or caving in. Two removable aluminum platforms box in a densely vegetated stretch of about 200 feet. That’s where a contractor laid nets made from coconut fiber and layered alders and willows like a streambank lasagna. Greenery pokes up through the spaces in the elevated, light-penetrating walkway.
Schumacher says the protruding flora is proof the project is working as intended – sunlight is reaching the plants underneath the platform and helping them grow. And visible near the surface are two tiny salmon, swimming between the plant fronds.
“The more vegetated mass you have above ground, you assume the more mass you have below ground,” she said. “Meaning that the root systems to these willows that we're seeing are helping to stabilize the bank.”
Schumacher says they typically have around $100,000 per year to spend on the program. The program matches what private property owners put up, so the net financial impact is closer to $200,000 per year.
The Currys’ project cost $44,185.50, roughly $18,000 of which came from them. The rest was covered by federal grant money. That total was discounted because the Currys let program coordinators host a workshop at their property. The project was completed in under 60 days last year.
“It's an investment,” Virginia said. “it's not 100% paid for, so you have to be willing to put out some cash. We were willing because we were losing property, well, and we love the river, so, you know, you don't want to see it deteriorate and it was.”
Schumacher says administrators use a rubric to score applicants and visit project sites before deciding which ones to fund. About a decade ago, she says $100,000 was enough to fund between 15 to 18 projects a year. Now, it covers eight or nine.
One year after the project was finished, the Currys say their bolstered bank is holding up under the pressures of an Alaska fishing season. Nineteen members of their extended family came to visit, and the Currys say a lot of that was spent teaching their grandkids to fish for salmon.
“Even the little 8-year-olds have not had an issue fishing off of it – it didn't change anything. It made it better,” Virginia said.
By participating in the program, landowners commit to upkeep of their riverbank for 10 years – the length of the project agreement. The infrastructure must also be permitted by the Kenai Peninsula Borough. The state published a streambank revegetation guide last year that helps inform the projects funded through the cost-share program. And coordinators say there are other free resources for those unable to participate.
Applications for the 2027 project cycle are due Sept. 30 at 5 p.m.
