How the Yakama Nation Is Working to Restore Fish Populations in the Upper Yakima Basin
This large hole at Cle Elum Dam—also known as a secant pile—will soon contain a completed fish passage structure.
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8 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2020
Irrigation Leader about the history and genesis of this project and what it aims to do. Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions. Brady Kent: I studied geology and earth and space science, at the University of Washington. I got involved in the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan (YBIP) through Tom Ring, who was a professor of mine. As I was finishing my university studies, he got me involved in the project and invited me to meetings and field trips as my interest grew. In my current position, I help with the Yakama Nation’s agricultural development and am also involved with irrigation system engineering, conservation, and modernization. Tom Ring: I am a hydrogeologist with degrees in geology. I went to work for the Yakama Nation in December 1990 and retired in November 2019, so I was employed there for almost 29 years. I worked in the Yakama Nation’s irrigationleadermagazine.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF TOM RING.
century ago, upwards of a million salmon and other anadromous fish species returned each year to spawn and rear in the rivers and lakes of the upper Yakima basin. However, early storage efforts involving wooden crib dams, followed by the Bureau of Reclamation’s construction of concrete dams in the 1910s and 1930s, rendered many former habitats inaccessible to these fish. The construction of Bumping Lake Dam in 1910 blocked access to the last sockeye salmon lake in the Yakima basin, and sockeye remained absent from the basin for 99 years. The Yakama Nation reintroduced sockeye to Cle Elum Lake in 2009 after Reclamation constructed a plywood flume at the dam for interim juvenile outmigration. As a permanent fix to this problem, Reclamation and the Washington State Department of Ecology are constructing a major fish passage project at Cle Elum Dam in the Upper Yakima basin. A large helix-shaped fish passage structure is being installed at the dam, and a working group of entities that include the Yakama Nation are monitoring and advancing fish reintroduction. In this interview, Brady Kent, the Yakama Nation’s agricultural development coordinator, and Tom Ring, a recently retired longtime Yakama Nation hydrogeologist, tell
