Popular Tri-Cities marina out of options. It will be torn down to help salmon

Customers of the Columbia Park Marina have been notified that the marina will be decommissioned and removed this year, after no option to save it could be found.

The Army Corps of Engineers announced plans in October to remove the earthen causeway just west of the marina at a cost of $13.2 million to restore free flowing water and help salmon.

The causeway provides a walking trail — the only land access — to Bateman Island.

But it also creates warm slack water. Conditions there are ideal for nonnative fish, such as small mouth bass, to prey on young salmon migrating toward the ocean in the spring.

Removing the causeway to allow water from the Yakima River to flow around the south side of the island would change water flow downstream.

“With no provisions to protect the marina after the causeway has been removed, the vessels moored in the marina, the dock structures and fueling system will be vulnerable to damage with changing currents, water levels, and ice and debris that would flow through the marina,” Amy Ford, the managing owner of Columbia Park Marina, told customers in a letter dated Friday.

A Corps environmental study said faster water could be particularly harmful for the marina’s overnight storage, which is farther from the shoreline.

The marina has space for about 106 boats and offers overnight stays of up to five days.

Former owners Lynne and Bev Koehler rebuilt the marina in about 1994 after a windstorm had destroyed it 20 years earlier. Greg and Amy Ford purchased the marina from the Koehlers in 2010, planning it as a long-term retirement investment.

The notice the Fords sent to customers said they “realize the value that the marina provides to the Tri-City community, and we send this letter with a heavy heart.”

Amy Ford told the Tri-City Herald that they had no immediate plans on what they will do next.

Causeway to stand until next winter

Army Corps land in the area is leased for parks and recreational use to the city of Richland under a 50-year agreement that expires in 2054. The city then subleases to the Fords, currently month-to-month based on terms allowed by the federal government.

Discussion between the Fords and government officials on how to save the marina if the causeway is removed have been held for several years with no solution found.

The final environmental study said that protecting the marina would have no benefit for endangered salmon and was not included as part of the recommended plan for removal of the causeway.

Tenants of the marina have been told that their leases will end March 31 and they have until May 1 to remove their belongings from their slips.

The Army Corps expects to begin design work to remove the causeway in about June. The start of removal of the causeway is not expected to be done before next winter when few, if any, juvenile salmon are present.

A 2004 study by the Corps with the city of Richland proposed providing a bridge to replace the causeway, but federal and state officials said that would be expensive and there were concerns that digging to build the structure could interfere with Native American cultural resources.

Native Americans have used the island since at least 16,000 years ago, according to the most recent Corps study. The Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1805 documents that the island was used then by Native Americans for drying fish.

Causeway impact on salmon

The causeway, which is 500 feet long and 40 feet wide, was built of earth in the 1940s for agricultural access. Rock riprap has been added since then.

Issues it created in the Yakima River delta were compounded when the McNary Dam downstream on the Columbia River was completed in 1957.

Now the causeway blocks water flow south of the island, leading to water temperatures as warm as 86 degrees for sustained periods on the south and west side of the island and peak temperatures of about 90 degrees.

Several salmon stocks have recently been reintroduced upriver in the Yakima, including coho, spring chinook, summer chinook and sockeye, but they must navigate the delta on their journey to and from the Pacific Ocean.

Not only does the slow, warm water provide ideal conditions for nonnative fish to prey on juvenile salmon in the spring, it also may prevent adult salmon from entering the Yakima River to spawn until later in the fall when water temperatures drop. Or they might continue up the Columbia River to overwinter, with just a few still entering the Yakima River the following spring, according to the most recent environmental study.

Removing the causeway also could improve habitat and migration conditions for lamprey as the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation work to restore the species as a culturally important food.

The stagnant and shallow backwater south of Bateman Island also encourages algal blooms and stargrass, which causes daily fluctuations of dissolved oxygen. Salmon are more sensitive to oxygen concentrations that warmer water predatory fish.