Priest Rapids Hatchery Renovation

The Priest Rapids Hatchery Renovation project provided extensive upgrades to an existing hatchery to improve reliability and ease operation, maintenance, and monitoring of Chinook salmon rearing.  

All construction work had to be strategically phased to avoid impacts to the active hatchery operations. IMCO demolished the existing facilities and retrofitted the new systems immediately after the eggs hatched and then followed the fry as they moved through the rearing process and then exited into the river as smolts. Facilities had to be completed before the returning adult salmon entered the hatchery in the fall for spawning and incubation. In-water permit requirements and seasonal groundwater availability further complicated the available work windows making careful planning and coordination by IMCO’s management team critical to the project’s success. 

IMCO self-performed nearly 80% of the contract including the underground piping, earthwork, excavation, shoring, cast-in-place and precast concrete, steel structures, intricate miscellaneous metals, large and complex gates, process mechanical, and piping. A 14,000-square-foot pre-fabricated incubation/lab building made up the heart of the facility, housing the complex operating systems to monitor the development of juvenile Chinook salmon.