During 2023 barrier monitoring within the New York State portion of the Great Lakes basin continued at the Youngs Mill dam and Little Salmon dam sites for Year-2 pre-removal monitoring and was expanded to the Awes Mill dam site on the Little Salmon River for Year-1 potential pre-removal monitoring (Figure 1). Additionally, a culvert enhancement site in Cortland County (Oswego Drainage Sub-Basin) was established at Curtis Rd in the Town of Virgil (Figure 5) for Year-1 pre-enhancement monitoring. Geographic location information for each site monitored in 2023 can be found in Table 1. The continuing goal of these projects is to evaluate the effectiveness of potential dam removals and culvert rightsizing enhancements have in restoring aquatic connectivity and improving biological and water quality metrics within their vicinity. Monitoring efforts allow project partners to understand the biological, habitat, and physical responses to dam removals and provide quantitative data to demonstrate stream improvement, while also setting realistic expectations for removal efforts in varying landscape context settings. Adding a culvert enhancement monitoring site this year, allows further investigation into how barriers of differing structures may influence aquatic life in streams. As more baseline data becomes available across different dam sites, the ability to optimize monitoring effort increases. Documenting the physical, biological, and ecological conditions surrounding dams in the Little Salmon River basin will aid in advancing conservation priorities by identifying existing bottlenecks to achieving successes and likely areas of restoration potential. Conservation priorities within the basin include efforts to improve natural spawning success of stocked Pacific salmonid species, improve aquatic connectivity for resident brook trout populations within the Little Salmon River watershed, and restoring landlocked Atlantic Salmon populations to Lake Ontario and its tributaries (including the Little Salmon). All of the stated conservation priorities would benefit from passage restoration and reach-level spawning habitat improvement.