A Fisheries Evaluation of the Richland and Toppenish/Satus Canal Fish Screening Facilities, Spring 1986 Annual Report.

The fisheries evaluation phase of diversion screen effectiveness summarizes the results of work at the Richland and Toppenish/Satus Fish screening facilities (Richland Screens and Toppenish/Satus Screens) during 1986. More than 10,000 steelhead, Salmo gairdneri, and chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, were released at the screen diversions. At the Richland Screens, 61% of the released steelhead were recovered and 1.1% were descaled; 93% of the spring chinook salmon were recovered and less than 1% were descaled. At the Toppenish/Satus Screens, only steelhead were evaluated for descaling; 88.9% were recovered and 23.9% were descaled. Only steelhead were evaluated because the Yakima River fisheries managers did not expect any other smolts to occur in Toppenish Creek. Because of the acclimation conditions and the amount of time the fish had to be held before testing, some of the test population were descaled during holding and transportation. The 23.9% descaling for the test fish was compared to 26.4% for the controls.