Cool weather, extra flows are a boon to Yakima River sockeye

YAKIMA, Wash. – Several thousand sockeye salmon could soon make their way up the Yakima River, helped along by cooler weather and a wave of extra water flowing down the river.

The Bureau of Reclamation began releasing an extra 6,000 acre-feet of water from its reservoirs Thursday and will continue the release through the weekend to boost the flow of water reaching fish in the lower section of the river, the Yakima Herald-Republic reported.

Bureau biologist Joel Hubble said the cool and potentially rainy conditions in the forecast are ideal for sockeye and summer chinook salmon that have been waiting in cooler Columbia River rather than heading up the warm Yakima River toward their spawning grounds.

“There’s three or four thousand sockeye waiting near Bateman Island,” said John Easterbrooks, regional fish program manager for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. “The fish are hiding in cool places, and they will head up the Yakima if conditions are good.”

Conditions in the lower river are frequently a concern for fish biologists because the slow-moving water tends to get too warm in the summer, making salmon stressed and sick.

But the extra water isn’t enough to cool the river on its own, Easterbrooks said. It takes almost a day for water to flow from the cool mountain reservoirs to the warm, slow lower river, and by that time, it’s warmed up