Habitat Restoration and Enhancement
The Jail Industries Board strongly supports the use of supervised jail industries crews for natural resource conservation and wildlife habitat enhancement projects. Yakima, Snohomish, and Cowlitz counties now have successful habitat restoration programs using offender crews paid for with Salmon Recovery Funding Board grants. Whatcom County has a long history of watershed restoration work funded through state Department of Ecology grants. All these counties have built up very credible track records for doing quality, efficient work and demonstrated the viability of this option. Many jurisdictions could benefit from using their model: cost-effective offender crews paired with natural resource professionals who provide training and oversee technical aspects of the projects. Grant funds pay for crew supervision and operating costs and offender labor is counted as a donation to satisfy local grant match requirements. Jurisdictions get a great source of labor to complete labor intensive projects and a new option for offender work crews.
The following pages outline the benefits of using offender crews, give some policy guidelines, and provide samples of project agreements. You can also click on the links to the Salmon Recovery Funding Board and Department of Ecology web sites, grant makers for most of the endangered species recovery work now being done in Washington.
Salmon Recovery Funding Board
Department of Ecology
Project Overview |
||
Policy Guidelines |
||
Master Agreement |
||
Crew Project Description |
Copyright 2004 Washington State Jail industries Board All rights reserved