Yakima River
Catchment area of the Yakima River
Yakima River in Kittitas County
Template: Infobox River / Obsolete
The Yakima River is a river in the U.S. state of Washington. It forms the outflow of Keechelus Lake in the Cascade Range and flows south-east to the Columbia River. The river is 320 km, according to some sources even 344 km long.
Geography
The origin of the Yakima River is the Keechelus Lake, an artificial lake in the Cascade Range. As an outflow of a reservoir, it forms the beginning of a major river. In the upper reaches it is dammed again to Lake Easton. He takes a number of small, partly glacier -fed creeks and several rivers such as the Cle Elum and the Teanaway. After about 80 km river he reached the Kittalas Valley, which is determined by the Yakima River in a green, populated by herds of cattle oasis. After Kittalas Valley, the river winds through the Yakima River Canyon and through grassy hill and finally reached the city of Yakima. Shortly before leaving the Yakima River Canyon from the right flows the Naches River to. The scenery along the river varies greatly, the river widens and flows along orchards and vineyards of the Yakima Valley AVA. The Yakima flows slowly through its valley to its mouth at the Columbia River in Richland.
History
The region was inhabited by Native Americans who make up the Yakama today. The Indians lived in large villages. The largest village, with an estimated 3000 population was located on the site of today's Yakima, since there is a large floodplain there. 1848 reached the first Christian missionaries, the region, and in 1855 the Yakama Reservation was established, in which the Indians should live as sedentary farmers. White settlers settled along the Yakima River, and took advantage of its water for irrigation. The construction of the Northern Railway through the valley from 1886 provided for an expansion of agriculture and thus the irrigated areas. 1902 were almost 490 km ² of land irrigated, so that in years of low rainfall parts of the river were dry. 1905, a national irrigation program was launched, which is used to this day for a powerful agriculture.
Environment
The Yakima River rises in the rainy southeastern Cascade Range flows into the dry interior of Washington. While the upper reaches through densely forested with Douglas fir, larch and ponderosa pine areas flows, vegetation goes from Bristol Canyon northwest of Ellensburg on in a shrub steppe Wüstenbeifuss and other shrubs. On the cliffs in the Yakima Canyon nesting hawks and eagles. The endemic basalt daisy grows only in the Yakima River Canyon and its tributaries.
The rising water consumption for households, fisheries, agriculture, industry and leisure affects the water table in the Yakima Basin. Due to the extensive agricultural irrigation water quality in the Yakima River is loaded and the fish migrations have been significantly reduced.
Attractions and buildings
From Yakima to Ellensburg, the flow between basalt cliffs and desert hills flows through it, one about 24 kilometer-high through the Yakima River Canyon with up to 600 meters of basalt rock. Parallel to the river leads the Highway 821 toll as State Scenic route through the canyon. 1992 acquired the Nature Conservancy 158 acres of land in the Yakima River Canyon. Much of it transferred to the Bureau of Land Management, which manages it according to the Canyon River Management Plan. The remaining 42 acres form the reserve of the Yakima River Preserve since 1993. The reserve of the Bureau of Land Management now includes over 36 km ². To reserve include the basalt cliffs, grassland by the river and an island in the middle of the Yakima River.
Yakima project
The Yakima Project of the Bureau of Reclamation in 1905 launched a national irrigation program with which a 280 km long and 1900 km ² large strip of fertile land along the Yakima River is artificially irrigated. The program includes large dams Bumping Lake, Clear Creek and Tieton in Snoqualmie National Forest and the Cle Elum, Kachess and Keechelus Dam in the Wenatchee National Forest. In the course of the River Yakima include more dams as the Roza Diversion Dam, numerous irrigation canals, pumping stations and two hydro power plants to the irrigation program. Until the 1980s, the reservoirs were extended and enlarged the irrigated area. The dams also serve to protect against flooding, the energy generated by the hydropower plants is largely used to operate the irrigation pumps. In 1994, the protection of fish and wildlife has been declared to the project goal.
Economy
Through the Yakima Project about 1900 km ² land are intensively irrigated in the Yakima River Basin, so the pool is one of the most irrigated areas of the United States. Crops are apples, cherries and other fruits, to hops, asparagus, or Lucerne, increasingly wine is grown. The foothills are grazing land for cattle. The Yakima River Canyon is a popular angling for trout.