The Chehalis River

While the Chehalis River lacks the fame and notoriety of Washington’s more iconic rivers like the Skagit and Hoh, most years the Chehalis boasts a run of wild steelhead larger than any river in Washington state. As recently as 2004, the Chehalis had 19,000 wild winter steelhead return to its waters. But much like many of its sister steelhead rivers, the Chehalis has been experiencing a steady decline of returning steelhead in recent years. In fact, 2020 was the fourth year in a row - and the ninth in the last fifteen years - that the wild steelhead run has failed to meet escapement, which led to the fishery being shuttered this spring.

We have the opportunity to reverse this decline by investing in important habitat restoration in a basin that has been marred by decades of destructive logging practices, farming operations, and flood control measures that have severely altered the natural operations of this dynamic ecosystem. That said, before we bring out the shovels, we must first roll up our sleeves and beat back a dangerous flood mitigation dam being proposed in the upper Chehalis watershed.

The proposed Chehalis dam is intended to mitigate major flood events that have become more frequent and destructive in this historically flood-prone basin. However, the draft environmental review of the dam makes it abundantly clear that the dam will not adequately address flooding problems and will further endanger struggling steelhead and salmon. In fact, the review demonstrated that the proposed dam would cause irreparable harm to the basin’s entire ecosystem, push the Chehalis's spring Chinook salmon population to the brink of extinction, and further decimate the basin's struggling steelhead population.

As a result of this review and pressure from concerned citizens, Washington’s governor recently stepped in and directed state agencies to cease planning efforts for the proposed Chehalis River dam and instead develop a basin-wide, non-dam alternative to flood reduction. This announcement is a big victory for wild steelhead and a substantial step forward in the longstanding effort to effectively mitigate flood damage and recover struggling wild fish populations in the Chehalis Basin.

Despite this positive development, the fight to defeat this dam and create a better future for the Chehalis’s communities and wild fish is not over. This proposed dam is far from dead, and merely stopping this dam is not enough. The Chehalis Basin needs a comprehensive strategy for addressing both severe flooding and dramatic salmonid declines, and the state needs the funding to implement this strategy.

To that end, the Wild Steelhead Coalition is working tirelessly to stop this destructive dam and is advocating for a sizable investment in salmonid recovery as well as flood mitigation. As members of the Chehalis River Alliance, we are also working with the Chehalis Basin Board to assemble, in partnership with stakeholders, local action alternatives that accomplish the dual goal of reducing flood impacts and restoring aquatic ecosystems. 

Learn more about The Effort to Protect the Chehalis River and Its Wild Steelhead