To remove a salmon-killing causeway, Richland votes to hand over management of a popular Columbia River island

For decades, a 550-foot causeway has connected the Richland shoreline to Bateman Island, a spot popular with local birders, hikers and fishers.

However, the causeway blocks water flowing from the Yakima River into the Columbia. And that’s made the area popular for predators, looking for a tasty snack of migrating salmon.

“ In one day (a Yakama Nation predatory biologist) caught 10,000 (bass and predation fish),” said Joe Blodgett, who manages the Yakama Nation’s Yakima Klickitat Fisheries Project. “(The biologist) thought, ‘Oh, I really put a dent in there.’ A couple weeks later, he went out there and it was the same thing.”

Blodgett spoke about removing the pathway to protect salmon at Tuesday’s Richland City Council meeting. Biologists say removing it could protect hundreds of migrating salmon from those predators, high water temperatures in the delta’s shallow waters, and oxygen-sucking stargrass that sprouts in the summer.

Discussions about tearing down the causeway have been ongoing for years. A feasibility study ended last October.

Over the years, the City of Richland has raised concerns about removing a nearby marina and potential toxins in the sediment. A study by the Army Corps of Engineers found the sediment held back by the causeway would be negligible. 

Now, city leaders are worried about managing Bateman Island if the causeway is removed. Chris Waite, the city’s parks and public facilities director, said they’d face fires, downed trees over trails and trash to pick up –– without an emergency boat.

“ For us to mobilize without that access complicates our ability to respond quickly,” Waite said at the council meeting.

The city leases Bateman Island from the Army Corps and is in charge of taking care of the island.

“ In terms of land management, (the causeway removal is) going to change the nature of how people interact with that space moving forward,” he said.

Waite recommended modifying the city’s 2004 recreational lease with the Army Corps. The Yakama Nation and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife agreed it would be best for the Corps to manage Bateman Island once the causeway is removed.

That would limit the city’s liability over the island.

“ (The Corps has) many islands in the area that they manage. So it would kind of return to that type of a management scheme,” said Mike Livingston, the south central regional director for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The council, in a 7-0 vote, approved the plan to apply for a modification of the Bateman Island lease. After they fill out the application with the Army Corps, the review process could take six months, Waite said.

“It can also go a little more quickly,” he said. “Obviously this is a high priority project.”

Waite said the Corps seemed amenable to taking over management of Bateman Island.

Removing one small causeway might sound like a relatively local project, but it could help salmon migration up and down the Yakima River, Blodgett said.

“ We are now the third highest contributor to the Columbia River with sockeye because of the reintroduction efforts that we’re doing in the Yakima River,” he said. “We know we can yield a lot higher results once we get this causeway out.”

For example, the Yakama Nation recently added fish passage at the Cle Elum Reservoir, on a tributary of the Yakima River. The $250 million project will help fish migrate to the ocean, Blodgett said. 

But right now, if fish migrating down the Yakima River turn right at the confluence, they’re likely not to make it, he said. That sends them straight into the hot, shallow waters trapped by the causeway.

Many get eaten by predatory birds or fish. Last year, hundreds of sockeye died in the Yakima Delta after getting stuck there, Blodgett said. 

It’s unclear how Bateman Island or the causeway came to be, Livingston said.

The department has aerial pictures of the area in 1939, and nothing is there. In 1940, the unapproved causeway popped up.

“ This is largely a rock and earth and material,” Livingston said at the council meeting. “We’re not exactly sure what’s underneath it. Some have said maybe there’s old car bodies or something under that because sometimes (builders) used whatever was available.”

Long before the island was built, it was home to a village site. The tribes and bands of the Yakama Nation and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation used the area to trade and fish, Blodgett said.

“We’re really watching what’s going to happen with this area. It’s important to us,” Blodgett said. 

Now, the future of the island is unclear, he said. If the Army Corps approves the modification to the City of Richland’s lease, they’d be in charge.

It would be up to them whether to allow boat access. Right now, Livingston said, the Corps isn’t interested in building a bridge to the island.

If the causeway is removed, water will flow faster through the area, Livingston said.

“ The island’s anticipated to do a little bit of moving, and then the main thing is the sediment that’s been backed up there for decades. It’ll flush out, it’s going to start scouring out and cleaning up,” Livingston said.

If all goes according to plan, he said, work to remove the causeway could begin this December through February –– when salmon aren’t in the area.