Leavenworth Fish Hatchery completes circular tank projects

After 20 years in the making, the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery dedicated its newly completed Pilot Circular Tanks Project on Thursday, June 23 in a ceremony honoring the salmon and the land with a quorum of groups including tribal partners from the Yakama Tribal Council, Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, federal, state and local groups including the Icicle Work Group, Reclamation, Biologists, Dept. of Ecology, Fisheries, Chelan County Natural Resources, and Fish and Wildlife Conservation and Hatchery staff. The pilot circular tanks project is expected to cut water usage by 1/2 on a 5-year pilot study measuring how well the salmon grow and return and improve stream flow in the Icicle River.

Gerald Lewis, Vice-Chairman of Yakama Nation Tribal Council, sang an ancestral song and spoke of the first food of the summer season being salmon and to honor them by announcing yourself at the water to fish so the land knows you, (hence their given names), to offer something as a trade, and to continue traditions their ancestors and elders taught new generations about the culture and connectivity to the land, and that it must be protected.