DESCRIPTION
The Lewis County Conservation District has been working with irrigators in the Chehalis Basin since 2014. One need that was discovered was WDFW compliant fish screens for irrigation intakes. These screens will prevent juvenile coho, chinook and steelhead from being sucked into irrigation systems. It will also prevent lamprey and small fish from being impacted. Phase one of this project will have installed 12 fish screens on irrigation intakes in the Chehalis Basin by the summer of 2018. This project will install 15 more screens. There are seven farms that want to install fish screens, four that are likely to want one and four more that we will seek out.
This project allowed us to continue our work with irrigators in the Chehalis Basin. A major need was WDFW compliant fish screens for irrigation intakes. This project was able to install twenty three fish screens on irrigation intakes. These screens are now preventing juvenile coho, chinook and steelhead from getting sucked into the intake. Small fish and lamprey are now not impacted. This has been an excellent outreach tool for farmers and they are happy with them.