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interests recommended using the Yakima River system as a demonstration of how 

 system improvements and revised operation can make a system resource meet both 

 irrigation and fishery needs. Reclamation met with Washington State 

 Department of Ecology, fishery interests and irrigation operators who 

 reiterated that it would be in the best interests of all parties concerned to 

 solve the problem of flow below Sunnyside Dam. The most recent study to 

 resolve this issue was a plan to build East Selah Regulation Reservoir. 



The proposed conservation project will consist of a regulating reservoir 

 adjacent to the Yakima River immediately downstream of Union Gap. The 

 regulating reservoir should be sized to store at least 400 acre-feet and 

 ideally about 1000 acre-feet. Surface area would be about 20 to 30 acres. 

 The proposed site includes private and tribal lands. It is presently occupied 

 by a gravel pit operation that has about two years worth of resource 

 remaining. The reservoir could possibly be filled using the Wapato Irrigation 

 Project canal, which would eliminate construction of a separate fish screen 

 facility and a new diversion works or pumping plant from the river. An outlet 

 works to the river above Sunnyside Diversion Dam will be required. Because 

 the reservoir is to be used to stabilize flows in the river, the pool surface 

 could fluctuate unpredictably. The tribe and adjacent landowners are 

 interested in having the facility operated as a preserve, and not open to 

 recreation. 



A second phase of the Washington Water Conservation Demonstration Project is 

 nonstructural. Procedures to accomplish water leasing will be developed. The 

 State of Washington has enacted legislation creating trust water, but to-date 

 there is no case history of this capability being used. The plan is to devise 

 a process which would establish price parameters, a process for soliciting 

 willing lessors, a process to evaluate water rights from which water would be 

 leased, and contractual arrangements for the leases. 



With the leasing procedure and the capability to control flows in the lower 



system near Sunnyside Dam. it is expected that flows can be kept at better 



levels than the existing conditions. This would benefit both smolt passage 

 and juvenile rearing. 



Oreqon--Wallowa River Basin 



Currently the Oregon demonstration project remains in a formative stage. 

 Initially, a pipeline project with the Soil Conservation District was 

 considered. The project proved to be an unpopular one. and has been 

 discontinued. Local resource managers are now inventorying problems and will 

 identify other potential projects. The list will be prioritized in January 

 1993. narrowing the alternatives to those which have local support. The 

 problems and needs inventories are being developed for Wallowa County by two 

 independent consultants as well as the Wallowa County Salmon Recovery Team. 

 It is anticipated that the technical analysis and investigation necessary to 

 prepare water conservation plans will begin shortly after February 1993. The 

 plans will address current water use and management of water for threatened 

 species. 



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