Construction continues on project to improve fish passage, water storage at Cle Elum Lake

CLE ELUM LAKE — About 200,000 juvenile sockeye salmon swam through a flume over the top of the Cle Elum Dam in April and May this year, beginning their migration to the ocean through channels in the Yakima and Columbia river basins.

The conditions at the water reservoir in Kittitas County near Ronald were ideal for fish passage, with water levels high enough to allow the young smolts to move during spring months when their biology is right, but that’s not always the case.

“This year, we had an abundance of water,” said Michael Livingston, south central regional director with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. “Most years, however, we don’t have such good conditions, and the fish have to wait for more snow to melt.”

Waiting until June or July for appropriate water levels can be dangerous to migrating fish because lower rivers will already be warming up, Livingston said.

Construction is underway on a new facility to address this issue, allowing fish to pass through an innovative multi-level intake and helix design that works even with fluctuating water levels. Washington state and federal partners including the Yakama Nation, Bureau of Reclamation, state Department of Ecology and state and federal Fish and Wildlife departments are coordinating the $200 million project.

“We’ll be able to have migration years like this year every year because the helix provides multiple elevations in the pool for the fish to get out,” Livingston said.

The construction of the Cle Elum Fish Passage Facility is one of six reservoir fish passage projects outlined in the Yakima Basin integrated water management plan, a 30-year, multibillion-dollar project to add water storage, improve fish passage and restore river flows.

Simultaneously, the Cle Elum Pool Raise project is underway to increase water storage at the facility, improving water supply, conservation and aiding with fish passage.

Fish passage

The 6,155-square-mile Yakima River Basin is historically second only to the Snake River in supporting Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead runs.

Dam construction at Cle Elum Lake and other naturally occurring alpine lakes in the basin in the early 1900s cut off multiple stocks of fish from fertile spawning ground.

“Historically, the entire river system in the Columbia basin was a connected basin where all fish species had access to the higher tributaries,” said Joe Blodgett, Yakima Klickitat Fisheries Project coordinator for Yakama Nation Fisheries. “When we started putting obstacles in the way and taking away a lot of that connective ability to migrate upstream and then migrate back out, it created a lot of hardships for the salmon populations.”

For sockeye salmon, who spawn and rear in freshwater lakes before migrating to the ocean and who are culturally important to Indigenous populations including the Yakama people, the dams equaled extinction in the area.

“When we start putting those types of barriers in there, it’s really not possible for the fish to do what their life cycle requires them to do,” Blodgett said.

He said the Cle Elum project is significant because it removes those barriers and because it’s a collaborative effort. The facility, once complete, will help restore biodiversity and natural production of salmon and other fish species in the upper Cle Elum subbasin.

“It’s such an important part of our culture, but it’s an important part of everybody’s life to have a healthy river system,” Blodgett said.

Design and construction

Wendy Christensen, Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Project manager with the Bureau of Reclamation, and Zach Wallace, project manager for construction contractor Garco, led a tour of the Cle Elum Fish Passage Facility site for area agency employees in late August.

“When we put fish passage on a facility like this, the real issue is the reservoir is likely going to be drawn down quite a ways, so it’s very difficult for the fish for us to connect via fish ladder or something like that,” Christensen said.

The multi-level intake system includes six concrete inlets spanning about 63 feet of the reservoir elevation. As the water level fluctuates, the gate for the inlet that matches the surface water level will open, allowing fish to flow through. The other inlets remain closed until the water is drawn down to that level.

Blodgett said the design, called a volitional passage, is crucial for passage to support a self-sustaining salmon population.

“It’s going to allow the fish to migrate out when their clock says it’s time to migrate out,” he said. “They’re not going to rely on a certain water level in the reservoir. They’re going to be allowed to find an opening and move out of the system when it’s their time to move out.”

Christensen said contractors have had to accommodate for fluctuating water levels while doing construction in the reservoir. The two lowest concrete inlets have been completed, and contractors were working on a third during a site visit in late August.

From the intake tunnel, the fish travel to the helix, an oval- or ellipse-shaped structure being built underground. Christensen described the helix like an airport parking garage, a structure of spiraling ramps that deposit the fish in the Cle Elum River on the other side of the dam.

A transition piece with a warped floor connects the concrete inlet to the helix spiral. The fish will pass through an open gate and into the helix, continuing through the tunnel — passing the gates closing off the inlets at other levels — to the river.

The frame of the helix was in place as of August, set about 110 feet into the ground. Christensen and others on the site tour climbed down a set of stairs to peer out over the top of the frame.

Soon, 16 precast sections and one helix transition piece will be lowered into the ground and fit to the frame for each revolution in the helix.

Adult collection

The high spring flows that flush the juvenile fish to the Cle Elum River, Yakima River and into the Columbia Basin aren’t present in the fall, when adults are making their way back to Cle Elum Lake to spawn.

To help adult fish complete the return trip, Christensen said an adult collection facility will be built at the base of the dam’s spillway.

A facility will be built to divert the adults into the collection area. Yakama Nation Fisheries will then load the fish into trucks for the ride around the dam and release them into Cle Elum Lake to spawn naturally.

“It just makes sense for us to be the operators of the facility because we do have the expertise in fish handling,” said Blodgett with Yakama Nation Fisheries.

He said the collection and transport is safe and efficient for fish.

“They’ll swim into the trap and not even realize that they’ve been diverted into this facility,” he said. “We then have the ability to move the fish into a transport truck and up into the lake with very minimal stress.”

Pool raise

A separate integrated plan project is underway at Cle Elum Lake that will also support improved water supply and fish passage efforts.

Reclamation and other agencies are taking steps to add three additional vertical feet to the reservoir, accommodating an additional 14,600 acre feet of water storage.

Christensen said three-feet lips were added to the radial gates of the dam in 2017 to support the raise and work along the shoreline is ongoing. Cooperation with partner agencies and private landowners is needed in areas that will be impacted by the raise.

She said several shoreline projects are underway, either in design or permitting for construction.

Other steps are being taken along the shore, including anchored logs near recreation areas to account for wave action with the pool raise.

“It creates a natural barrier,” Christensen said.

“They’re already doing what they’re supposed to do,” she said, pointing to the sticks and debris collecting around the logs next to a boat ramp at Speelyi Beach on the southeast shore of the lake.

The logs will continue to collect debris, strengthening the barrier for when water levels are higher, she said.

Timeline

Christensen said the fish passage facility is expected to be operational by 2026, with the adult collection facility completed shortly after. Construction for the fish passage facility and pool raise began in 2015.

She said the effort is a huge partnership, with funding, planning and resources shared across numerous state and federal agencies through participation in the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan.

“We’re working on all these aspects in a holistic manner to just, again, try and balance between fish and irrigation and what the municipalities need,” she said.

Blodgett said the collaboration and integrated plan are key for achieving multiple goals in the basin.

“There’s a lot of demand on water,” he said. “We realize that and we understand that the economy relies on this, but at the same time we’re advocating for the fish. The salmon have been taking care of our people for time immemorial, and it’s our role to have responsibility to care for them.”

He said the project isn’t driven by one single interest, but by multiple, from the fisheries and Yakama Nation to irrigation needs.

Tom Tebb, director of the Office of the Columbia River for the Washington state Department of Ecology, attended the site visit in August. He has been with Ecology for 31 years and said he’s been putting off retirement to see pieces of this project come to fruition.

He described it as a watershed moment, to have different agencies with multiple interests working together.

“With climate change and future loss of snow, we’re very concerned about the future,” he said. “We need a secure water supply, we need conservation and we need effective fish passage.”