CRM approach helps resolve fish, wildlife issues

Peggy Steward
Washington State Staff Writer

November 4, 2005

ELLENSBURG, Wash. – Faced with fish and wildlife conflicts, several farmers and ranchers in Central Washington’s Kittitas County have turned to the Coordinated Resource Management process to find solutions.

CRM is a voluntary, locally led collaborative process for land and resource management. Under CRM, solutions are crafted by those closest to the land, usually landowners and land managers. Other stakeholders, including government agencies, the tribes and environmental-interest groups, also take part.

Three projects in Kittitas County were showcased Oct. 19, when two busloads of government officials, policy makers, environmentalists, farmers and ranchers participated in a tour hosted by the Kittitas County Conservation District.

The Yakima Tributary Access and Habitat Program, YTAHP for short, began when landowners sought help addressing fish screening and fish passage issues in tributaries to the upper Yakima River, said Anna Lael, district manager of the Kittitas County Conservation District, based in Ellensburg.

YTAHP hasn’t officially been called a CRM project, but it used many of the CRM principles, Lael said.

“We didn’t want to end up like the Methow or Klamath Basin,” Lael said. “In Kittitas County, the landowners have been proactively involved in the decisions, rather than waiting to deal with enforcements.”

In the county, the 400-square-mile watershed includes several small tributaries and is crossed by irrigation districts, making solutions very complicated, Lael said.

YTAHP is funded by several sources, including $3.9 million from the Bonneville Power Administration. The program is voluntary and incentive-based, and landowners receive technical and financial help.

Under YTAHP, the conservation district has assessed and inventoried more than 130 miles of streams, evaluating diversions and fish passage considerations. When the assessment data is complete, tributary teams will be formed to prioritize projects on the streams, Lael said. She estimated there could be as many as 40 to 50 potential projects within the county; about six projects are under way or have been completed.

“It takes a lot of planning and time,” Lael said. “It also takes a lot of money.” The conservation district and others involved in YTAHP continue to look for funding sources, she said.

An example of the kinds of projects planned under YTAHP is the Eaton Ranch southeast of Ellensburg, where John and Christi Eaton have a commercial cow-calf operation and raise mixed hay in addition to pastures.

At their ranch, several fields have been converted from rill irrigation to more efficient center pivots. Two diversions on Wilson Creek were abandoned and changed to one pump. Fish passage barriers were removed, riparian areas were fenced and restored, and a bridge was built to allow cattle to cross the creek without wading through the water.

The project was initiated by the Yakama Nation before YTAHP began, and the Yakamas helped secure some of the funding for the project, Lael said.

The collaborative efforts returned 910 acre feet of water to Wilson Creek through the state water trust, Lael said. The Eaton ranch improvements involved several funding sources, including $108,400 from the state Salmon Recovery Funding Board, $142,300 from a Kittitas County Conservation District Irrigation Efficiencies Program, and $51,125 in federal NRCS EQIP funds. The Eatons also contributed cost shares and labor for the projects.

Another project showcased during the Oct. 19 tour involves fish screening and fish passage in the lower five miles of Manastash Creek. The project’s goal is to improve habitat for fish while supporting long-time creek water rights.

While fish recovery issues are a major concern, a number of farmers and ranchers in Kittitas County, faced with damage from elk, have formed the Big Game Management Roundtable. The roundtable estimates elk damage to rangeland, orchards, irrigated crops, haystacks, fences and other structures at than $1 million over the past 10 years in Kittitas County alone.

The roundtable uses the CRM consensus-building process, and includes landowners, as well as representatives of the Yakama Nation, environmental-interest groups, hunting organizations, timber companies and state and federal agencies.

Roundtable members said the problems stem from a variety of causes, including changing logging and grazing practices, the loss of water sources, loss of habitat from rural development, and people who feed elk on private property. Farmers and ranchers said there are too many elk in the region for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife’s current management strategy.

The group has published a newsletter and a brochure and is seeking $50,000 from the Legislature for the conservation district to help develop a plan to solve elk depredation problems in the county. The plan calls for herding elk from private land to public land, repairing elk fences and educating the public about the damage elk can cause. Longer-term solutions include habitat improvements on public land and the monitoring of changes in elk movement.

Peggy Steward is in Ellensburg, Wash. She is at psteward@capitalpress.com.