Salmon begin long journey back to Yakima Basin

LAKE CLE ELUM, Wash. -- Fidelia Andy can remember her grandmother drying fish and the stories she shared of trips to the Columbia River and Celilo Falls to fish.

Now Andy has stories of her own to share with future generations about the return to the Yakima River Basin of sockeye salmon, a species highly prized as food and an important cultural tradition of the Yakama people.

After an absence of about 115 years, sockeye salmon, also known as blue back, are once again in Lake Cle Elum, northwest of Ellensburg.

The last adult sockeye died out in 1894 with the construction of the last crude rock-filled wooden dams to store irrigation water at three of the basin's biggest reservoirs, Cle Elum, Kachess and Keechelus lakes.

"This is something we have always looked forward to," said Andy, chair of the Yakama Tribal Council Fish and Wildlife and Law and Order Committee. "If they can't get to their destination, they can't redevelop themselves. They have been gone for all these years, and now we are getting them back."

She watched as a tank truck carrying 100 sockeye adults trapped at Priest Rapids Dam early Tuesday released the fish into the lake, part of a plan to have 500 adult pairs mate and spawn in the lake's tributaries to restore a naturally occurring sockeye run.

Yakama tribal members celebrated the long-awaited event with chants, traditional dances and songs and prayers.

Continuing improvements to water quality in the lower Yakima River and better flows provide some promise for a revival of sockeye.

The next major piece of the puzzle, a proposed fish passage facility in Lake Cle Elum, the largest of the basin's storage reservoirs, could complete the picture. Meanwhile, sockeye rely on a temporary solution that works during high water years, but causes problems in years of water shortages.

Plans call for planting adult sockeye in Lake Cle Elum for another 18 years to develop a self-sustaining run.

"This is really a symbolic day. This is the first time adult sockeye have been in Cle Elum in roughly 100 years," said John Easterbrooks, fishery program manager for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife in Yakima.

About 50 of the fish have been equipped with a tag that emits a signal that will allow biologists to trace where they go and the types of habitat they prefer to spawn and rear.

Easterbrooks there will be research on the types of habitat sockeye prefer.

"It's been so long, no one knows," he said.

Jeff Tayer, regional fish and wildlife director, said the basin has come a long way from three decades ago, when migratory fish were perilously close to dying out altogether in the Yakima River.

"This is a great day for those who love salmon, a great day for those who love biodiversity, and a great day for those who love nature," Tayer said.

Dave Fast, a senior research scientist for the Yakama Nation, said before irrigation came to the Yakima Valley, populations of several species of migratory fish numbered near a million. Building of dams and other factors associated with development caused the once great runs of sockeye, summer chinook and coho to perish.

If a Yakima sockeye run can be re-established, it would be the third sockeye run in the Northwest. The others are in the upper Columbia River and Lake Wenatchee.

"It would be a real good distribution for sockeye in the entire Columbia River. If we can get a third stock established, that would spread out the risk" if something happens to the other runs, he said.

Much of the restoration of sockeye will rely on a permanent fish passage facility to allow adults to pass through Cle Elum Dam on their way to the ocean.

A flume over the dam's huge spillway, built in 2004, has shown the system can work as long as the lake, with a capacity of 436,000 acre-feet of water, can fill each year.

But such an occurrence can be hit and miss, as it has in one year so far.

The flume is part of an agreement reached by the Bureau of Reclamation with the Yakama Nation and state and federal fishery agencies to study fish passage at the basin's five dams. The agreement occurred in the wake of a decision to rebuild nearby Keechelus Dam without including facilities to allow fish to pass.

Cle Elum was chosen because it is the largest storage lake. Bumping Lake, the basin's smallest lake at 33,000 acre-feet also has been studied.

Dawn Wiedmeier, acting area manager for the Bureau of Reclamation, said design work is nearly complete on a tower inside the lake that would permit fish to swim to the Cle Elum River.

The structure is being designed to work even when the lake isn't full. However, the tower would allow fish only out of the lake. Returning fish would need to be trucked around the dam.

Wiedmeier said the agency hopes to obtain congressional funding to start construction in 2013. Meanwhile, officials will have to rely on the lake filling.

Phil Rigdon, deputy director of the Yakama Nation Natural Resources Program, told the audience of some 200 people gathered for the release that the day could not have been realized without the cooperation of federal and state agencies, irrigators and power producers.

He called it an important milestone along a long road still to be traveled for full restoration.

For tribal leaders like Fidelia Andy, that road promises a future for children not yet born who will see a return of sockeye salmon, she said.

* David Lester can be reached at 509-577-7674 or dlester@yakimaherald.com.

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