This project strives to rebuild fall and spring chinook, coho summer steelhead and bull trout populations through protecting and restoring some of the most critical off-channel rearing habitats associated with the Yakima and Naches mainstems. The project has protected several productive shoreline parcels to date. Levees have been removed or setback, informational fliers have been sent to over 400 floodplain landowners, and numerous meetings with affected or interested individuals have occurred along streams and in conference rooms.Five key reaches which have been identified by the University of Montana ? Flathead Biological Station as highly productive rearing habitat areas, are targeted by this project for protection/restoration actions. These reaches are located immediately upstream of geologic features that restrict down-gradient movement of groundwater. As a result groundwater upwells to the stream channel, resulting in a productive hyporheic zone. Specific reaches include the Easton (near the headwaters of the Yakima mainstem), the Cle Elum (from the vicinity of the Cle Elum River confluence to the Teanaway River confluence), the Ellensburg (above the Ellensburg-Yakima Canyon), Union Gap (above the Union Gap divide), and Gleed, in the lower Naches River.It is important to note that the project focuses primarily on passive restoration. Protection of habitat prevents further degradation. In many areas of the basin, salmonid rearing habitat has already been lost through irrigation development, diking, flow regulation, and a myriad of construction actions that effectively removed floodplain area.The project is relevant to the 2000 Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife program in that it will contribute to the protection and restoration of anadromous fish stocks in the Yakima Basin. Further, the project will also benefit terrestrial wildlife species through the same actions described above.This project focuses on protecting and restoring those habitats that have good connectivity between the channel and floodplain.
