Roundup of Spring
Field Trips

As the school year ends, so does the education season for Mid-Columbia Fisheries. Between Salmon in the Classroom and a host of community events, it's been a busy spring!



Through our Salmon in the Classroom program, we helped 432 students from Kittitas County schools raise coho salmon from eggs donated by the Yakama Nation Melvin R. Sampson Coho Facility. Over the year, students took part in up to three hands-on science lessons led by our staff, learning about the salmon they were raising, their habitat needs, and the ways humans affect salmon in our region.

Lessons used the Teanaway watershed as a local case study, connecting classroom learning to real places the students know. This spring, students released their salmon into tributaries of the Yakima River to grow and help populate our waters. They are now wrapping up the year with stewardship projects and post-assessments that showcase what they have learned.

We also teamed up with the Yakima Basin Environmental Education Program for salmon-release field trips, serving 100 students at Naches Valley Middle School and 137 at Saddle Mountain Elementary School. 

We also help organize Water Jam, an educational event that reaches 350 students in the Columbia River Gorge and culminates the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s local salmon-in-the-classroom program. Our staff joined the US Forest Service's annual 4th Grade Camp, reaching 237 students from six regional schools, and supported the Benton Conservation District's annual Salmon Summit fish release.

None of this would have been possible without our partners from Yakama Nation, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service, Washington Department of Ecology, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Kittitas Environmental Education Network (KEEN), Mountains to Sound Greenway, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Army Corp of Engineers, Columbia Riverkeeper, Underwood Conservation District, NOAA Fisheries, Klickitat County, and many other agencies, along with private landowners. All gave their time, resources, and property to make the 2026 education season a success.

Thanks to our Mid-Columbia Fisheries staff who made the 2026 salmon release field trips possible! Pictured from left: Tori Wood, Amelia Suksdorf, Sarah Christopherson, Dean Brooks, Caleb Benson, Abraham Ramirez, Emerson Blotz

From left: Outreach Intern Emily Wilburn, Outreach Lead Cece Acosta, Outreach Intern Max Henyan, and Bull Trout Task Force Field Biologist Aimee Taylor

Please join us in welcoming our outreach team! This summer, their focus will be to educate the public about Bull Trout habitat and the danger of stream-spanning rock dams to salmonid migration. A specific project focus will be on the ongoing restoration work in the Teanaway, and how the floodplain work on the Teanaway River forks will benefit salmonids and the landscape by increasing forest resiliency.

If you see them in the "wild," stop by and say hi! The outreach team will have regular presentations at Dickey Creek, the Teanaway Campground, and at various boat launches and recreational spaces across our region. 

Trees at the Spring Creek restoration project in Kittitas County have sprung back to life following a tumultuous winter that saw water spill out of its banks not once, but twice in three months! The December floods covered much of the project area in sheet flow as deep as three to four feet!


With all this water, we were fortunate to witness a floodplain functioning at a high level. By giving the river a place to go, the project reduced flooding impacts downstream, recharged aquifers reliant on river processes, and captured sediment that would have been washed downstream. These processes support fish and wildlife by creating complex habitats and increasing plant diversity.


The Spring Creek site is a large revegetation project – more than 2,200 feet of stream – that was made possible by Kittitas County Public Works, who, along with MCF, are completing a much larger Floodplains by Design project in the lower Kittitas Reach. Stretching 2.7 miles, the 595-acre project will reconnect the Yakima River to its historic floodplain by removing berms and levees, reactivating side channels, restoring gravel pits, and large-scale revegetation. 

The planting and stewardship of this project will be the largest ever completed by Mid-Columbia Fisheries: 105 acres will be revegetated with a mix of trees, grasses, and forbs. 17.5 acres will be planted this fall before we lose access to areas, including parts of Spring Creek and the Ringer Loop area. 

We are SO excited to be working on a project that will be a huge boost to salmon and steelhead in the Upper Yakima!

Spring Creek is as green and vibrant as ever following the significant flooding this winter. 

Congratulations to Maggie Egan, who recently defended her Master's thesis at Central Washington University. Maggie has been a pivotal addition to our team, jumping in wherever projects need support.



The thesis—The Hydrology and Geomorphology of Pre-Restoration West Fork Teanaway River, Kittitas County, WA—distills two years of field monitoring across the West Fork Teanaway restoration area, spanning both the WDFW and MCF project reaches (RM 8.0–6.85).



From winter 2024 through this May, Maggie tracked floodplain groundwater levels and river stage and discharge, and mapped the floodplain aquifer's stratigraphy. The aim: capture the river's pre-restoration baseline so that future monitoring can measure exactly how restoration reshapes the hydrology of the study area.



What's next is still taking shape, but Maggie recently earned a Geologist-in-Training (GIT) license and is pursuing a career in hydrogeology—with an eye toward licensure as both a Professional Geologist and a Hydrogeologist.

We are excited to welcome John Littel to the Mid-Columbia Fisheries Board of Directors. A retired union representative from Ellensburg, John comes with serious conservation roots — including years on the Teanaway Community Forest Advisory Committee, hands-on experience with river restoration projects, and extensive experience managing construction projects.

John’s community spirit extends far beyond the Yakima Basin: John volunteers internationally with a non-profit construction organization and serves as a housing commissioner for the Housing Authority of Kittitas County. In addition to his involvement in our board, John keeps busy in the garden, at the campground, or out on the river.

We are so pleased to welcome him to the team!