SEQUIM — The City Council was surprised this week to find that the city had agreed to spend $50,000 on a salmon recovery project.

In September, former Sequim Public Works Director James Bay signed an agreement with the North Olympic Salmon Coalition that indicated the city would be a partner in a project to replace a culvert at the Pitship Pocket Estuary just south of John Wayne Marina and Whitefeather Way.

The agreement said that the city would contribute $50,000 worth of engineering services, said Cheryl Baumann, coordinator of the North Olympic Peninsula Lead Entity for Salmon.

The coalition won a $380,250 Salmon Recovery Funding Board grant last December.

It plans to replace an undersized culvert at the Pitship Pocket Estuary with a bridge over West Sequim Bay Road.

The new bridge would open up space for juvenile salmon — endangered summer chum, Puget Sound chinook and other species — to swim from the bay through marshland toward the Jimmycomelately Creek watershed.

The old culvert is elevated too high for young fish to leap into, according to the salmon coalition.

But this week, that deal was a bit of a surprise to the Sequim City Council.