Taking the Road Ahead

Too often we let the road take us somewhere instead of taking it where we want to go, but a new project from Conservation Northwest goes the other way.

Looking to take the next step in the journey that began with the successful plan to put wildlife passages on Interstate 90 at Snoqualmie Pass, Conservation Northwest has proposed another wildlife underpass. This one, located on Highway 97 in remote Okanogan County, has a twist with the potential to spread throughout Washington state and allow us to go in important new directions.

In response to the more than 350 mule deer killed by automobiles on Highway 97 every year, Conservation Northwest has brokered a deal with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to construct one wildlife underpass on the road. If the environmental organization can raise $125,000 through its Okanogan Wildlife Crossing Campaign by the end of 2018, WSDOT will build the underpass, hopefully sparking the state legislature to provide funding for additional crossings in the future. I donated to the campaign yesterday. To learn more about the project and see how you can contribute to the campaign, click here.

Beyond Conservation Northwest's single underpass or the intent to expand that project in the coming years, the efforts to connect habitat through wildlife crossings represent a greater undertaking. They set a course toward enacting a vision of how people can best interact with the environment. As the video below demonstrates, Conservation Northwest realizes that vision through tangible results (like those already seen at Snoqualmie Pass) that reshape and improve our entire state. It's a great lesson in how to take a proactive approach while navigating our social and environmental challenges.



Projects like the Highway 97 wildlife crossing are more than just ways of getting from one point to another; they are opportunities to take the road into the future to the place we really want to be.

The Best of Us

The best of who we are emerges through our collective efforts to achieve shared dreams.

At Snoqualmie Pass on Interstate 90 in Washington state's Cascade Mountains, we can see the great things that happen when people come together in a public decision-making process and exercise their combined power to solve problems. Fittingly, that collaboration has produced work that both symbolizes and realizes the potential of connection.

Seeking to solve multiple problems, including avalanche danger, car collisions with wildlife, and ecosystem disruption, a far-reaching coalition of environmental groups, government agencies, lawmakers, and engaged citizens, planned out an extraordinary project. Through a series of road-widening strategies and plans for wildlife overpasses and underpasses, the coalition set in motion an intelligent and inspiring approach to transportation and habitat connectivity. The long and impressive work to bring that vision to life continues, but the fruits of the labor have already started appearing, and they are nothing short of awesome. To learn more about the entire project, check out Cascade Crossroads, the new documentary by Conservation Northwest:



Fragile as it is, confidence in ourselves and our public institutions deserves the best chance to flourish. When it is allowed to, it yields amazing results.

Projects like the I-90 wildlife overpasses and underpasses demonstrate the great things within our collective capacity when we offer our individual strengths to the work of a common dream.