Schaake Side Channel Restoration Project

Schaake Side Channel Restoration Project Overview

The Yakima River Basin was historically a productive salmon river with broad, sweeping floodplains that provided ample off-channel habitat for juvenile salmon. This productivity was strongly tied to floodplain processes, which created and maintained side-channel areas that juvenile salmon used for rearing. These areas provided lower water velocities, refugia from predators, and more invertebrate prey relative to the mainstem. Together these benefits resulted in greater juvenile salmon growth and survival potential. The need to restore these floodplain habitats in the Yakima Basin was first recognized in the early 2000’s through work funded by Reclamation and summarized in the Reaches Project (Stanford et al. 2002). The report emphasized the importance of off-channel habitats and the need for restoring normative flows.

Schaake Project Monitoring

Over a century of structural modifications, including levee construction and gravel pit mining disconnected the river from its floodplain throughout much of the upper Yakima Basin. The river reach the Schaake project is located in was heavily modified by levees including one, constructed in 1930, that was 7,600 ft long. Side channels were warm, stagnant, pools that were disconnected from the mainstem. The lack of shade from riparian vegetation further exacerbated water temperatures, and sediment berms restricted fish access to the few remaining side channels. In 2003, Reclamation took the lead in acquiring and restoring the Schaake site near Ellensburg, Washington (Figure 1). Prior to being acquired, the 285-acre site was used as a feedlot and packing house. Today, the Schaake Habitat Improvement Project is one of the largest floodplain restoration projects in the Yakima River Basin, reconnecting 130 acres of floodplain along a 2-mile reach of the upper Yakima River. The work removed about a mile of levee, recontoured the floodplain, enhanced side channels, and re-established native riparian vegetation.

Figure 1. Map of the Yakima River Basin showing location of PIT antennas within the Schaake restoration site and release locations of PIT tagged fish.

To evaluate fish use of the site by PIT (Passive Integrated Transponder) tagged fish, the USFWS installed PIT antennas at three locations (Figure 1; inset) in the restored side channels in 2023 (Figure 2; top). In addition to PIT antennas, the USFWS used fyke nets to collect and measure fish from the site on June 6 and 7, 2023 and May 21, 2024 (Figure 2; bottom). Antennas detected fish that had been released at various sites in the upper Yakima Basin. Since 2023, 256 fish have been detected at the Schaake site. Seventy-five percent of the detected fish were juvenile hatchery Coho Salmon, released upstream into Reecer Creek or the mainstem Yakima River. Juvenile Spring Chinook Salmon, most of which were hatchery reared, accounted for 21% of fish. The 12 remaining fish were wild O. mykiss with an unknown migratory status (Figure 3).

Figure 2. Pass through type PIT antenna (top) and fyke net (bottom) used to detect and collect fish in restored side channels at the Schaake restoration site.

Figure 3. Number of PIT tagged fish detected at three antennas at the Schaake Restoration Site from 2023-2025 delineated by the site where they were released.

Ten fish taxa were observed. While juvenile Chinook and Coho Salmon were the primary salmonids collected, Three-spined Stickleback and Suckers dominated the overall fish community, (Table 1). Data collected thus far indicates that the restored property is providing habitat for both hatchery reared and wild juvenile salmonids and the broader native fish community. Ultimately, restoration is beginning to provide essential side channel habitat and reconnecting the upper Yakima River to its floodplain. We also collected a single Pond Loach, a species native to Eastern Asia, including Siberia, Vietnam, and Japan. The rare fish was euthanized and reported to the USFWS invasive species coordinator, but it was not the first time a Loach was reported in the upper Yakima River.

Table 1. Fish collected from the Schaake Restoration site using fyke nets on June 7-8, 2023 and May 21, 2024.
Fish Taxa	2023 Count	2024 Count
Juvenile Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha)	95	65
Juvenile Coho Salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch)	32	54
Unidentified Dace (Rhinichthys spp.)	69	27
Northern Pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus oregonensis)	32	27
Redside Shiners (Richardsonius balteatus)	48	29
Unidentified Sculpin (Cottus spp.)	27	11
Three-spined Stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus)	500+	221
Unidentified Suckers (Catostomus spp.)	295	231
Mountain Whitefish (Prosopium williamsoni)	3	1
Yellow Perch (Perca flavescens)	0	1
Pond Loach (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus)	0	1