The delay is a legal dispute involving local landowners, state and federal agencies, and the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. The legal action has effectively stalled planned repairs and upgrades to several aging tidegates that are deemed crucial by farmers and drainage districts for managing flood risk and maintaining viable farmland. The lawsuit claims that existing tidegate systems impede fish passage, particularly juvenile Chinook salmon, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The plaintiffs argue that the tidegates block access to upstream rearing habitat that is vital for the recovery of these salmon populations.
On the other side of the conflict, farmers and drainage district officials contend that the tidegates are indispensable for preventing farmland from flooding with saltwater during high tides and storm surges. They argue that the continued delay in repairing these structures places crops, homes, and critical infrastructure at risk, particularly in the face of increasingly unpredictable weather patterns driven by climate change. For many of these landowners, the tidegate systems represent decades of investment in maintaining arable land in a region that supports a significant portion of the state’s agricultural output, including berries, potatoes, and dairy.
The impasse has exposed broader tensions between land use priorities, environmental stewardship, and tribal treaty rights. The Swinomish Tribe has long emphasized the cultural and ecological importance of salmon recovery in the Skagit River watershed, which is one of the largest and most productive salmon-spawning systems in the Pacific Northwest. Tribal representatives have consistently pointed to the obligations of state and federal governments to uphold treaty commitments, which include the protection of salmon habitat and access to traditional fishing grounds.
