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A multi-million-dollar design-build project to restore salmon passage along 12 miles of US Highway 101 in Washington state reached completion in late 2025, reconnecting critical fish habitat and upholding tribal treaty fishing rights along the northern Olympic Peninsula.

The Hamilton/Scarcella Joint Venture, known as HSJV, served as design-builder for the Washington State Department of Transportation project, which removed six fish passage barriers and replaced them with fish-passable structures across Clallam and Jefferson counties. Work included constructing five bridges, one buried structure and approximately 3,000 linear feet of new stream alignments, along with retaining walls, stream channel excavation, roadway improvements and landscaping across the 15-acre project footprint. Work sites involved Eagle Creek, Discovery Creek, Chicken Coop Creek, Contractor’s Creek, an Unnamed Tributary No. 2, and Johnson Creek.

Much of the project corridor runs near Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe reservation lands. The tribe, which holds treaty rights to salmon-bearing streams in the area, participated in de-sign task force meetings and bi-weekly construction updates throughout the project. When the tribe requested an elk crossing at one site, HSJV and its design team modified the structure and stream design to accommodate the request while saving approximately $2 million.

The project employed several first-of-their-kind techniques in Washington state. HSJV used over-winter stream bypass systems at two sites – Chicken Coop Creek and Contractors Creek – allowing stream excavation to proceed outside standard in-water work windows, from October through June. Permitting agencies had rarely approved such bypasses previously, but the project’s success has helped establish the approach as a viable statewide alternative. At the Unnamed Tributary No. 2 site, the team used ultra-lightweight foamed glass aggregates – manufactured from 100 percent recycled glass – as backfill behind bridge abutments to address liquefied soil conditions. It marked the first use of the material on a WSDOT project.

All six construction sites used a top-down bridge construction method, building foundations and superstructure before excavating new stream channels beneath the completed spans – reducing site disturbance and compressing the schedule.

Safety programs included monthly project-specific safety committee meetings that brought together HSJV staff, subcontractors, consultants and WSDOT personnel, supplementing daily tailgate meetings and job hazard analyses. HSJV also partnered with the Washington State Patrol on work-zone speed enforcement and deployed radar speed trailers at active sites.

The project achieved 18.6 percent participation across minority, small, veteran-owned and women-owned business categories, with 28 subcontractors involved. DBE subcontractors included Advanced Government Services, which handled all traffic control, and Green City, which completed $1.7 million in landscaping work across all six sites.

Buck Allen, HSJV project manager, said in the Top Projects submission form that the project’s finish ahead of schedule and under budget reflected a commitment established early in the process.