09-23 REELLIFE digital - Flipbook - Page 34
REINTRODUCING CHINOOK
SALMON ABOVE GRAND
COULEE DAM By John Kruse
Chinook salmon have not been
swimming in the waters of the
Upper Columbia River above
Grand Coulee Dam since it was
built in 1941, but several Native
American tribes in our region are
working on bringing them back.
I recently had a chance to
chat with Conor Giorgi, the
Anadromous Program Manager
at Spokane Tribal Fisheries, about
this subject. I asked Conor why no
fish ladder was installed at Grand
Coulee Dam so the salmon could
get past the dam, like others on
the Columbia River. Giorgi said
a fish ladder was planned for the
dam, but as the dam grew bigger
and taller, the construction of a
fish ladder became unfeasible.
There were efforts made after
the dam was constructed to
trap chinook salmon at Rock
Island Dam near Wenatchee and
transport the fish above Grand
34 | NWFISHING.net
Coulee Dam, but the efforts to
sustain the chinook salmon in
Lake Roosevelt and further north
into Canada failed within a few
years of the dam being built.
Grand Coulee Dam is not the
only dam without a fish ladder.
The next dam downstream, Chief
Joseph Dam, which was built in
1950, also lacks a fish ladder, and
all migratory salmon passage
has been blocked upstream of
this dam near Bridgeport to the
headwaters of the river in British
Columbia.
Asked about the possibility of
installing fish ladders at these two
dams now, Giorgi said they would
be unlikely to work because the
fish would simply have to expend
too much energy attempting to
make it past these dams. Instead,
they are trapping salmon and
hauling them above Grand
Coulee Dam.