Pond 5 Reach Riparian Restoration

The Wapato Reach of the Yakima River, between Union Gap and Mabton, has experienced a 40% to 50% aerial cover loss in riparian forest between 1949 and 2015, as documented in the 2021 Wapato Reach Riparian Assessment. Forest loss is caused by the fundamentally impaired flow regime, this impairment being driven by the storage and diversion of water for irrigated agriculture. This rate of forest loss is unsustainable and will lead to the destruction of the majority of the forest by 2100 unless resource managers and funders take corrective action. Replanting the remaining 6,000 acres of forest would cost on the order of $50 to $100 million given current 5 year planting and maintenance costs of $15,000 to $20,000 per acre, documented from planting projects in the Yakima Basin by Mid-Columbia Fisheries Enhancement Group. Incremental but sustained riparian planting in the active channel is necessary to stem forest loss and maintain the current forest area, let alone recover the forest extent of the mid-1900s.

This project will plant over 20 acres in the active channel between river miles 98 and 99, near the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Pond 5 Recreation Area. It will use machinery and hand planting methods to plant riparian trees (mostly black cottonwoods) and shrubs (willows) on active channel surfaces that are largely devoid of vegetation. In order to protect plantings from high flows, wood structures will be installed provide hydraulic protection. Plantings will be protected from beaver browse by plastic tubes. Maintenance and monitoring will be enacted for 5 years. 

This project is funded by the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Commission,  project number 24-1719.