Unique Fish Tunnel Closer to Reality at Lake Cle Elum

Posted

If all goes well over the next three years, thousands of fish will be able to leave Lake Cle Elum to head to the sea for the first time in eight decades.

Plans for the construction of a first-of-its kind tunnel allowing the fish to escape have made a huge step forward with the awarding of a $15.2 million contract.

"If we're able to reintroduce those fish, we'll see recreational benefits and a lot of ecological benefits to the system as well," said Richard Visser, a project manager with the federal Bureau of Reclamation's Yakima field office.

For untold centuries, salmon migrated up the Yakima and Cle Elum rivers and headed to the tributaries in the mountains. The offspring would then return to the sea. But that ended early in the last century when a dam was constructed, creating the lake.

Officials hope to remedy that by construction of a 1,250-foot tunnel that will allow trout and salmon — especially sockeye — access to the reservoir and headwaters. Northbank Civil & Marine Inc., a small business based in Vancouver, won the contract.

If the tunnel is successful, construction of a fishery on Lake Cle Elum could be next, Visser said.

Other benefits include a thriving wildlife ecosystem and greater opportunities for recreational fishermen.



The project is part of the $4 billion to $6 billion Yakima Basin Integrated Plan, a collaboration between state, federal, tribal and local groups to improve water management in the region for fish, farms, and communities over the next 30 years.

Construction is slated to begin next month, and is expected to be completed by late 2020; but Visser said construction may not begin until spring if workers don't start before the first snows.

The bureau's partners on the project are the state departments of Ecology and Fish and Wildlife, as well as the Yakama Nation, which began slowly reintroducing sockeye to the system in 2009 through the use of a flume.

Tribal officials say the tunnel at Cle Elum and eventually others at all the region's reservoirs are key to restoring healthy salmon populations in the Yakima Basin.

The flume was meant as a pilot to test the feasibility of the larger project, Visser said. The tunnel, which targets juveniles, has three parts: a stepped inlet to let fish swim in at varying water heights, and a spiral water slide that lowers the fish to a tunnel past the dam that delivers them to the river. For returning adults, the plan is to trap fish below the dam that are too big for the tunnel and drive them in tanker trucks up to the reservoir for release.

The first phase of the project, which began in 2015, was completed last fall after a $4.5 million road and bridge across the Cle Elum River was completed. The road and bridge were built so that the passage facility can be built on the far side of the dam.