Schaake Side Channel Restoration Project

Schaake Side Channel Restoration Project Overview

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Schaake Project Monitoring

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.

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 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, the USFWS installed three PIT antenna arrays in the restored side channels in 2023 (Figure 2). These 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. PIT antenna (top) and fyke net (bottom) used to detect and assess fish in restored side channels at the Schaake restoration property.

Figure 3. PIT-tagged fish detected at Schaake Restoration Site from 2023 - 2025. Fish in the “other” category were released in the West Fork Teanaway River, Swauk Creek, Taneum Creek, or Wilson Creek.

In addition to PIT antennas, the USFWS used fyke nets to collect and measure fish from the site. Nine primary fish types were observed. While juvenile Chinook and Coho Salmon were the primary salmonids collected, three-spine 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.

Table 1. Fish collected from the Schaake Restoration site using fyke nets in 2023
Fish Species	Count
Chinook Salmon	95
Coho Salmon	32
Dace	69
Northern Pikeminnow	32
Redside Shiners	48
Sculpin	27
Threespine Stickleback	500+
Suckers	295
Mountain Whitefish	3