UNDERWOOD, Wash. — The idea of tearing down Condit Dam on the White Salmon River and restoring salmon and steelhead to the upper watershed has been pretty widely embraced for the past two decades.
Now, 13 months before the long-awaited “blow-and-go” of the small, aging hydroelectric dam, some folks — mostly sport fishermen — are having some serious reservations.
Post-Condit factoids
Fall chinook are expected to be able to use the White Salmon River upstream to Husum Falls, at river mile 7.6.
Spring chinook and coho are expected to use the watershed upstream to BZ Falls at river mile 12.4. Those falls are 15 to 17 feet tall.
Post-Condit factoids
Fall chinook are expected to be able to use the White Salmon River upstream to Husum Falls, at river mile 7.6.
Spring chinook and coho are expected to use the watershed upstream to BZ Falls at river mile 12.4. Those falls are 15 to 17 feet tall.
Steelhead expected to be able to use the watershed up to Big Brother Falls at river mile 16.2. Those falls are 29 feet tall. Lamprey are expected to make it over Big Brother Falls and use Trout Lake.
Removing Condit Dam opens an estimated 33 miles of additional habitat to salmon and steelhead. That's mostly in the main river itself, plus Rattlesnake and Indian creeks.
Steelhead expected to be able to use the watershed up to Big Brother Falls at river mile 16.2. Those falls are 29 feet tall. Lamprey are expected to make it over Big Brother Falls and use Trout Lake.
Removing Condit Dam opens an estimated 33 miles of additional habitat to salmon and steelhead. That’s mostly in the main river itself, plus Rattlesnake and Indian creeks.
And that’s because no one quite knows how badly the century of silt behind Condit will fill in the deep water at the confluence of the Columbia and White Salmon rivers.
If the silt fills too much, and the area gets too shallow, anglers fear they’ll not be able to catch the approximately 4,000 steelhead a summer they harvest anchoring and trolling at the mouth of the White Salmon River.
“I’m not a hydrologist, but I’m nervous about how that sediment will move itself out,” said John Weinheimer, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist who manages the sport fishery on the White Salmon.
The lower river is a cold-water refuge for fish. The river originates on the slopes of Mount Adams and its cool flows are a well-used resting spot for upper Columbia and Snake-bound fish, particularly steelhead.
Fishing can be excellent in August and September, and occurs 24 hours a day.
But the recovery plan for the post-Condit Dam version of the White Salmon River calls for “natural colonization,” to re-establish fish runs.
Wild tule (dark) fall chinook will be trapped downstream of Condit in the fall of 2011 and released upstream of the dam before the hole is blown, said Rich Turner, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The goal is to transport 500 fall chinook. If not enough are captured, they’ll be supplemented with chinook from nearby Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery, he said.
Then the plan calls for monitoring the river for the next four to five years to see how spring and fall chinook, winter and summer steelhead, and coho reclaim the watershed.
The planting of about 20,000 summer and 20,000 winter steelhead annually to provide a sport fishery up the White Salmon, other than the “dip-in” fishery at the mouth, will end, Weinheimer said.
Obviously, so will the planting of trout in Northwestern Lake since the reservoir behind the dam will no longer exist.
At a public meeting here last week, plenty of sportsmen voiced their fear that they’ll lose a prime fishing spot. They said to look no farther than across the Columbia River to the Hood River or upstream few miles to the Klickitat River to see the shallow-water deltas.
Turner said he’s optimistic the sediment behind Condit Dam will slowly distribute downriver. That’s what happened when Marmot Dam on Oregon’s Sandy River was removed.
Bill Sharp, a Yakama Indian Nation biologist, said the tribes have $500,000 to protect the Indian fishing site at the mouth of the White Salmon from silting in.
The tribes are talking with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about dredging the mouths of the White Salmon, Klickitat and Hood rivers, he added.
Wind River linkage
Adding to sportsmen’s angst is the history of steelhead fishing in the nearby Wind River.
The stocking of summer steelhead in the Wind ended 13 years ago to create a sanctuary for wild fish, a place without interbreeding with hatchery fish.
There’s a catch-and-release season from mid-September through November in the upper portion of the watershed, but that’s a sore point with a lot of the locals who fished the river when it had hatchery plants.
“If we go with the plan, stocking will stop in the river, the river will recolonize naturally, so basically it will end up like the Wind — no fishing — to protect the ESA- (Endangered Species Act) listed species,” said Tom Linde of Carson.
He also questioned using natural colonization when hatchery fish were used to jump-start recovery programs in rivers such at the Yakima.
“Why not try to reestablish a wild run as quickly as possible rather than wait 50 years,” Linde said.
A recovery plan for the lower Columbia River system, which includes the White Salmon River,
is expected to be out for public comment in late winter. Weinheimer said it is important for sportsmen to participate in that process.
“It’s obvious there’s a lot of passion about these fish,” he said. “They matter to everyone.”
