The City of Cathlamet owns a culvert at Una Street at river mile 0.1 on Birnie Creek. The Creek flows through Cathlamet and is a tributary to the Columbia. This culvert is presently acting as a barrier to fish passage. The culvert is a four foot wide by six foot high concrete box placed at 5.7% slope, 74 feet long with seven foot aprons and wing walls. The downstream end of the culvert is submerged, back watering all but the upper 25+/- feet. At low flow this culvert is a depth barrier, and at high flow a velocity barrier. The proposal for the City of Cathlamet culvert at Una St. includes modifying the existing box culvert to provide fish passage with downstream grade controls and some upstream channel modifications. Coho, steelhead and cutthroat will be able to access over 7,000 m2 of spawning habitat and 28,000 m2 of rearing habitat. WDFW and the City of Cathlamet are working together on this project. Construction is scheduled for summer of 2000. The project is part of a larger effort to correct other barriers in the creek system.
