Black Rock is being sold as a project that will improve fisheries in the Yakima River basin.  This concept is coming into common use as a basis for promoting dam and reservoir projects.  We call it the Trojan Fish.

Salmon are endangered in the Yakima, and major efforts are underway to rescue salmon species in the basin. A host of organizations are involved in salmon recovery, including the Yakima Basin Fish & Wildlife Planning Board, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, Yakima River Basin Salmon Recovery Funding Board, Yakima River Basin Community Salmon Fund, and others.

Salmon recovery in the Yakima basin is complex.  In some reaches of the watershed, inadequate flow is a problem.  In other areas, the salmon fix requires riparian restoration, fish passage at the Bureau’s Yakima Project dams, water quality improvements, river-flood plain reconnection and other actions.  The Yakima Watershed Salmonid Recovery Strategy (February 2004) provides a good basis for understanding the multiple factors causing decline of salmon.

(To review that document, click here.) 

Thus, while augmenting instream flows in the Yakima could benefit salmon recovery, $4 billion spent on a single issue will not solve all of the basin’s salmon problems.  If salmon recovery is the goal, that money would be better spent focusing on the full range of problems.

Another serious concern is that Black Rock’s staggering price tag will siphon funding that is now dedicated to other fish recovery projects, both in the Yakima and elsewhere in the Columbia River basin.  Improvements in instream flows could be obtained through more cost-effective measures, including water markets.

Salmon advocates should not be fooled.  Black Rock is not really about saving salmon in the Yakima River – and it will not save Yakima salmon.  Black Rock’s ostensible salmon-saving purpose is a Trojan Fish.  It may look good on the outside, but on closer inspection, it harbors trouble.

Next:  Black Rock not a Recreation Site