Freshwater Solutions: Restoring Pacific Salmon

State and local agencies across the country turn to the Freshwater Institute for its innovation and expertise in rearing cold water fish, including Pacific salmon. By engaging the Institute’s modeling, planning and design services, communities are able to meet habitat and species conservation goals and use their limited water resources efficiently.

Summary

The Chelan County Public Utility District in Washington state rears Pacific salmon and steelhead in the Upper Columbia River as part of fish and habitat conservation plans for its Rocky Reach and Rock Island Hydroelectric Projects. To meet its goals, the District turned to the Freshwater Institute for its expertise in planning and designing state-of-the-art culture systems for imperiled salmon and other cold water fish.

Challenge

The regional habitat conservation plan commits the public utility to a 50-year program to ensure that its hydroelectric projects have no net impact on mid-Columbia salmon and steelhead runs. Under this directive, the District must raise more Pacific salmon and steelhead over the next ten years than the existing hatchery infrastructure can support. In the short run, the District must develop a plan for growth that ensures the efficient use of the region's water resources, and then invest in new fish rearing facilities in the next four to six years.

Solution

The Public Utility District tapped the Freshwater Institute to analyze the current hatchery program and produce a model of fish growth that takes stock of the water quality and water use requirements to raise healthy salmon and steelhead. The model will be compared to existing infrastructure and capacity to identify areas where investment is needed. The Freshwater Institute will then design an efficient and effective solution that supports the restoration of both Pacific salmon and steelhead within the region.

Results

The public utility will make investments in new facilities to meet the habitat conservation plans for the fish. Taking into account best practices for the efficient use of water, the increased capacity of the fish hatchery infrastructure will ensure both the health of the fish and the continued quality of the water resources in the Upper Columbia River.

View the Chelan County Public Utility District website>>