DESCRIPTION
Kittitas Conservation Trust will use this planning grant to develop final designs for restoration elements that will expand and enhance salmonid spawning and rearing habitat in a 0.6 mile reach of the mainstem Yakima River. The project site is located in the Easton Reach about 7 river miles upstream of the confluence with the Cle Elum River. The fundamental goal of the project is to improve aquatic and riparian habitat in a salmon bearing river system so as to grow and restore stocks of native anadromous and resident fishes. The Upper Yakima River at the project location supports Spring Chinook, coho, and sockeye salmon, ESA listed Mid-Columbia steelhead trout, and is designated critical habitat for bull trout. This design project will produce final construction plans for instream structures and riparian enhancements that will address the primary limiting factor for expansion of populations of these high priority species - a critical shortage of rearing habitat for small juvenile fish. Project designs will express a landscape scale conservation strategy whereby thinning activities in the property's upland forest that promote stand resiliency will simultaneously supply large woody materials to be used in building instream and edge habitat log structures. The project property is protected from future development by a perpetual conservation easement covering 438 acres on both banks of 1.3 river miles of the Yakima River.
Kittitas Conservation Trust used this planning grant to develop final designs for restoration elements that will expand and enhance salmonid rearing habitat in a 0.6 mile reach of the mainstem Yakima River. The project site is located between river mile 192 and 193, about 5 miles upstream of its confluence with the Cle Elum River. The fundamental goal of the project is to improve aquatic and riparian habitat in a salmon bearing river system so as to grow and restore stocks of native anadromous and resident fishes. Fish habitat productivity in this reach of the Yakima River mainstem is compromised by flow regulation and floodplain loss. The primary limiting factor for increased anadromous fish production is a lack of rearing habitat and refuge for young fish from high-velocity flows. This final design strove to optimize available edge habitat for juvenile salmonids with the intent of increasing foraging and rearing habitat in this compromised reach. Designs will add 2,500 feet of perennially accessible side channel to provide off-channel rearing habitat for spring Chinook and Coho salmon, ESA listed Mid-Columbia steelhead and Rainbow Trout, and place 62 large wood structures (flow deflector, channel margin jams, single, and paired logs) into the newly activated side channels to create 60 instream pools to expand and enhance juvenile salmonid foraging and rearing opportunities. A 75' vegetated riparian buffer along river right will provide shade and cover in a currently exposed river bank to provide additional habitat, improve water quality, and restore riparian and floodplain conditions. The original design concept included adding wood to the main channel, but this aspect of the design was removed to minimize the potential risk to recreational river users.
The project property is protected from future development by a perpetual conservation easement covering 438 acres on both banks of 1.3 river miles of the Yakima River.
