Protect Our Rivers
Our rivers aren’t just water; they’re life and need our care. There are 8 major rivers surrounding Yakima County, along with smaller streams. Problems have been developing due to climate change, droughts, water management issues, and other factors. Project partnership to restore passage and refuge for struggling salmon populations, run by American Rivers, has been supporting the removal of causeways at Bateman Island.
Around 1939-1940, a pathway was built to reach an island for agricultural reasons. Over time, it formed a shallow pond of warm, stagnant water, where invasive species thrived and hunted juvenile salmon and steelhead. Not only does it harbor invasive species, but it also produces an overgrowth of vegetation that limits where the salmon and steelhead can swim. Both juveniles, when they migrate down to the ocean during spring and early summer, and adults, when they come up to spawn, are affected by the overgrowth happening.
Though the populations of both species have been rising in Washington, populations in the Yakima River Basin have been depressed due to the causeway. There have been past droughts that have impacted this delta significantly. “When salmon spend excessive time in warm, shallow water depleted of dissolved oxygen, it can be fatal.” Woodward 2026. With it being really warm and vegetation growing, it gives it a very swampy environment, which harbors a warm ecosystem of mosquitoes, algal blooms, overgrowth of a plant known as water stargrass, non-native predatory fish, bacteria, parasites, and degrades water quality. 2 summers prior, the high water rivers in the Yakima River Delta killed around 75 sockeye salmon. “Warm water can also act as a thermal barrier, blocking fish passage and causing adult fish to stray or wait in cooler waters in the mainstem Columbia, decreasing their chances of successfully spawning.” Woodward 2026
Currently, corporations such as the Walla Walla District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Yakama Nation Fisheries, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), and the Mid-Columbia Fisheries Enhancement Group are collaborating to initiate the removal of the Bateman Island causeway. This will positively impact their spawning habitat, the passage, water quality, and water movement. For more information, visit Americanrivers.org.
