This year, the Strategic Initiative Leads (SILs) completed final reports summarizing our first eight years of planning and investments in transformative actions for Puget Sound lands, waters, fish, and people. We’re proud to share these “SIL 1.0” Synthesis Reports celebrating over 230 projects and the work of dozens of dedicated partners under our first EPA funding agreement, and how we’re building on this foundation to continue advancing important recovery priorities. 

The SILs are a “roots up” approach to ecosystem recovery. By growing strong, collaborative networks, we’re laying the foundation for long-term ecological results greater than the sum of their parts. From 2016 through 2024, the SILs worked with expert advisory teams to develop Implementation Strategies and direct EPA funding to impactful projects in the Puget Sound Action Agenda.  

Like the roots of a tree, these investments start below the surface by enabling the conditions for success, fostering the relationships, institutional capacity, and scientific basis needed to overcome recovery barriers. We also invested in changing behaviors around resource management, public education, and stewardship programs, building local and regional programs to protect shellfish beds, healthy habitats, and clean water – similar to tree branches that will support new growth for years to come. Finally, a small but significant group of projects showed how meaningful progress on ecological restoration grows out of this strong recovery system. SIL-funded pilot projects replanted shorelines, installed green stormwater systems, and expanded harvestable shellfish acreage in communities around Puget Sound. These investments set the stage for future restoration activities to flourish as we continue working together for a healthy Puget Sound. 

Read the final Synthesis Reports from each SIL below! Download a summary one-pager here. 

 Habitat Synthesis  

Shellfish Synthesis 

Stormwater Synthesis  

This fall, the SILs have been sharing the results of our 1.0 work and the current and future directions for our Implementation Strategies. SIL staff presented at the Restore America’s Estuaries Coastal and Estuarine Summit in October 2024 (presentations available here). We also shared detailed findings, success stories, and lessons learned with the Puget Sound Management Conference boards (recording and slides available).  

Restoring and sustaining a healthy ecosystem takes time and coordinated effort. SIL 1.0 showed that collaborative strategic planning helps focus resources on the actions that are necessary first steps to long-term progress. Building on the successes of SIL 1.0, we’re continuing to engage the Puget Sound recovery community in putting the Implementation Strategies into action. Under SIL 2.0, our grant partners are making targeted investments that carry forward these important lines of work. These projects are supporting climate resilient and multi-benefit stormwater management, sustaining Pollution Identification & Correction programs that protect shellfish harvests, and advancing kelp and eelgrass restoration in critical nearshore salmon habitat, among many others. As we continue working together, we hope you’ll follow along with new projects and find ways to get involved for Puget Sound. 

Did you know?

67 partners received a total of nearly $60 million in funding to implement projects during SIL 1.0, ranging from shellfish bed protection and habitat restoration to groundbreaking research and transformative capacity-building in local, Tribal, state, and community organizations.