White Salmon River Basin: Lamprey Project. Final Programmatic Report

摘要

The White Salmon River (WSR) is in southwest Washington in the Columbia River Gorge and it originates on Mount Adams. The U.S. Congress designated the WSR under both the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area Act (NMFS 2009). The WSR basin is within lands ceded to the United States government by the Yakama Nation. Historically, the WSR supported Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, coho salmon O. kisutch, steelhead O. mykiss, coastal cutthroat trout O. clarki, bull trout Salvelinus confluentus, Pacific lamprey Entosphenus tridentatus and western brook lamprey Lampetra richardsoni populations. However, with the construction of Condit Dam in the early 1900s, anadromous fish production in the WSR declined drastically. After the destruction of the fish ladder by high flows in 1919, passage upstream of Condit Dam was blocked to all fishes. In addition, because of habitat loss and flow alteration caused by hydroelectric operations, little anadromous fish production occurs downstream of Condit Dam.