PENDLETON-- Research on the Umatilla River in northeast Oregon shows fixing irrigation dams has allowed more of the protected steelhead and salmon to pass through.

Biologist Craig Contor of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation said that in the 1990s few fish made it upstream to spawn because fish ladders at dams were clogged with gravel or were above the water line because of erosion.

He said adding rocks in the river and cleaning out the gravel in the ladders helped the fish. He said almost 1,000 fish have been tagged with tracking devices since 2009, and nearly all made it through the spawning system.