CHELAN FALLS — Chelan County PUD biologists and engineers have received the “salmon stamp of approval” for their $16 million project to add nesting habitat and restore year-round flow to the Chelan River.

“The fish approved,” PUD fisheries biologist Steve Hays told commissioners Monday, of the 250 chinook salmon nests, called “redds,” observed last fall in and around the new habitat area.

An aerial photo taken last fall of the habitat area shows a river bottom virtually covered by the whitish redds.

Each redd can produce some 5,000 fish that will eventually migrate to the ocean to mature and then return in several years to spawn.

The project involved building a new stream from the ground up at the lower end of Chelan Gorge, near the dam’s powerhouse.

The area contains gravel, vegetation and stream flow that fish like for spawning. Water is released
...... http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2010/apr/22/salmon-like-their-new-chelan-falls-digs/