See a map of current and future land use in the Snoqualmie Basin. Under the leadership of King County Executive Ron Sims, the county has established programs to protect good salmon habitat and to restore degraded habitat. Both King and Snohomish counties have adopted innovative land use regulations to protect the Snoqualmie. Unfortunately, development pressures threaten to squander these good efforts. Forested slopes along the river and its tributaries are steadily being converted into residential developments, which have contributed to flooding and water quality violations.
More development means more erosion and polluted runoff.
Development is also encroaching on the Snoqualmie River's floodplain, expanding the amount of asphalt and pavement which increases erosion and polluted runoff flowing into habitats essential to rearing young salmon. King, Snohomish and Pierce counties are currently developing a plan to respond to the March 1999 listing of Puget Sound populations of chinook salmon as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Known as the Tri-County Process, this effort should conclude in 2001 with a model plan, which will provide direction to the counties and their cities on how development should be regulated to protect salmon. Sprawling development threatens the Snoqualmie , one of Puget Sound's last best rivers. Although the draft Tri-County plan contains many promising elements, it permits too much destruction of forests and native vegetation and does not adequately limit pavement, asphalt, and other hard surfaces that degrade the Snoqualmie and its tributaries by increasing flooding and erosion.