More water, happier fish

As far south as one can get in the Yakima Irrigation Project lies the little Benton Irrigation District.

Serving 4,600 acres in the Benton City area for nearly a century in relative obscurity, Benton is about to become one focus of salmon recovery.

A three-year, $16 million improvement project that starts next year to modernize a dilapidated and inefficient irrigation system will help farmers and yield benefits throughout the three-county irrigation project.

Coupled with a more ambitious improvement -- and more expensive at $67 million -- plan by the Sunnyside Division, the result will mean a substantial increase in the amount of water left in the lower Yakima River during the summer.

There, the river is a toxic brew for fish with high water temperatures and low flows that cause stress, disease and exposure to predators.

Beyond the lower river, the additional water will help with winter egg incubation high in the Cascade Mountains and improve conditions for juveniles and adults moving throughout the river system.

Jim Trull, manager of the Sunnyside Division, said the improvements benefit everyone in the basin, farmers and the environment.

"It enables us to do some things that everyone is happy about, the environmental community, fish resource managers, the irrigation district and its landowners," he said.

The two projects together will boost stream flows below Sunnyside Dam by as much as 50 percent. Benton's share of the increase will be at least 15 percent.

"When you start talking about a 15 percent to 20 percent increase in the flow, that is significant," said John Easterbrooks, fishery program manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The timing is key also because of efforts by the Yakama Nation to reintroduce summer chinook, which went extinct in 1970, and sockeye salmon, a species that died out after the dams went in.

Both species would be migrating through the lower river in September when current conditions are at their worst.

Alex Conley, executive director of the Yakima Basin Fish and Wildlife Recovery Board, said the Benton and Sunnyside plans are part of his group's salmon recovery strategy that includes proposals to improve flow conditions in the lower river.

The local plan has been modified and adopted as a recovery plan by NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency responsible for restoring migratory fish listed under the Endangered Species Act. Listed fish here are steelhead and bull trout.

"The basic issues are lower flows and higher temperatures in the summer. The other major issue is with reductions in outmigration flows when juveniles are heading to the ocean in the spring," he said.

What Benton wants to do is move its diversion from Sunnyside Dam at Parker, south of Union Gap, to Benton City. The district water will flow down the river, adding to current flows.

In addition, the district will install a piped system to reduce seepage, evaporation and maintenance.

The project, scheduled to start next year, is being funded mostly by state and federal money under a 1994 federal law designed to help irrigators be more efficient and improve habitat for fish.

The Bureau of Reclamation concluded in late September the Benton project will not have an adverse effect on the environment.

Dawn Wiedemeier, field office manager for the Yakima Irrigation Project, said the project will help both the irrigators and the environment.

"Keeping that much water in the river will be a key boost for the fish," she said. "It is also a big benefit to the district to have a piped system."

The current system of open laterals is old, difficult to maintain and, in some cases, is unable to deliver water to farmers, she said.

The federal law, the Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Project, that offers funding to irrigators for improvements requires they give up a portion of the water saved through modernization. The saved water can then be used for boosting streamflows.

After a slow start, the enhancement project has begun to gather steam as irrigation districts have developed improvement plans.

The Sunnyside Division, which delivers water to 99,000 acres through the heart of the Yakima Valley, is working to complete the first phase of a $45 million project to build small off-canal reservoirs to better manage water supplies, automated canal control structures and a flow monitoring system.

The division's second phase, the $67 million project, will see up to 30 water-delivery laterals piped that serve some 45,000 acres, nearly half the division.

Trull, the Sunnyside Division manager, said the division hopes to get started on its project by 2010. It is expected to take 15 years to complete.

Trull said two-thirds of the water saved, about 16,500 acre-feet, will remain in the river to further improve river flows.

"It can be a very helpful fish management tool," Trull said.

* David Lester can be reached at 577-7674 or dlester@yakimaherald.com.

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