This exemplary proposal is well organized, informative, and includes numerous useful maps and tables. More importantly, it has many years of solid accomplishments and continues to be an excellent example of a fully cooperative, landscape-scale project for protection and restoration of aquatic habitat. It is being implemented in coordination with a sophisticated program for the monitoring and evaluation of abundance and trends of steelhead populations. The proposal reflects a strong partnership between the four primary agencies (U.S. Forest Service, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Geological Survey’s Columbia River Research Laboratory, and Underwood Conservation District) and a range of landowners and other partners. The project selection process is clear and involves one process on public lands and another separate process for private lands. Also, the proponents’ continuing efforts to understand effects of habitat work on steelhead are to be complimented; such close coordination between restoration practitioners and researchers is not a typical feature of many other projects that the ISRP has reviewed.

The ISRP also emphasizes the importance and positive contributions of active public outreach in this project (and other projects) as being critical to success. This is a component that warrants specific and continued support into the future.

In future annual reports and work plans, the proponents should address the following Conditions:

1. SMART objectives. The proponents should incorporate a more complete set of implementation and outcome objectives that meet SMART criteria (see proposal instructions) for the five-year funding period. These should include biological objectives for the watershed and also Trout Creek, site of the Hemlock Dam removal project. Objectives for habitat restoration and protection could be developed for one or two example projects and used as a template for other projects.
2. Project monitoring. The proponents should describe proposed activities and associated objectives for project scale monitoring and evaluation, project maintenance, and public outreach and coordination.
3. Specific RME questions. The list of RME questions/hypotheses should be re-written to focus specifically on the Wind River. Currently, these are presented as a fairly generic list of questions. It was also unclear if the proponents were attempting to answer all questions or only some.
4. Estimation of habitat capacity. Smolt habitat capacity is estimated at 24,000 to 35,000 based on spawner-smolt recruit analysis, and smolt abundance estimates have ranged up to 43,000. It may be possible that the watershed is close to capacity. The proponents should indicate how often capacity is estimated and how close it may be to full smolt capacity.
5. Future stream temperature. Given that the overall goal of the project is to restore watershed processes and habitats to ensure resiliency into the future, it would be helpful to clarify whether or not habitat improvement projects are being designed and implemented to minimize future increases in stream temperature likely to occur with ongoing climate change. Also, it would be useful to clarify whether or not methods may be changing in response to changing climate.
6. VSP parameters. Provide a list or table of the VSP parameters that are being estimated, the monitoring that contributes to them, and the analysis that contributes to them.
7. Implementation and funding. Consider improving Appendix A by describing the sequencing of implementation of future actions and specifically describing who will fund each project component. It is not clear which projects require matching funds and if those funds have been secured.
8. Priority protection and restoration actions. Although accomplishments to date are impressive, it would be useful to see a discussion of the remaining priority protection and restoration actions in the watershed (besides those projects listed in Appendix A) and a general timeline for completion.
9. Synthesis report. Given the long-term nature of this project, the proponents should develop a synthesis report of what has been accomplished to date. This synthesis should be completed within the next five years before the next project review. This report should not only describe progress to date but should answer the question as to how close the watershed may be to capacity. Also, the report should tackle the question of whether or not there may be an end point to restoration work in this watershed and how far proponents may be in terms of efforts for overall restoration of the watershed. (For example, high priority passage and road work seem to have been mostly accomplished.)
10. Restoration strategy. Moving forward, it may also be appropriate to develop a unified Wind River restoration strategy that combines the best elements of the two current strategies, one for privately owned land and the other for public land. This would likely serve to improve consistency in project prioritization and selection and in providing better definition on long-term direction and needs for the program

Q1: Clearly defined objectives and outcomes

This proposal describes a “collaborative restoration and research effort directed toward wild steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in the Wind River.” It presents the major issues affecting steelhead production in the Wind River and describes a process-based, whole watershed approach to protection and restoration of aquatic habitat. It also includes description of a robust RME program, involving the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), and it is an intensively Monitored Watershed (IMW). Restoration work for the project is split between the Underwood Conservation District (UCD) to address issues on private lands and the U.S. Forest Service to address issues on National Forest lands. This work is guided by two different plans, the LCFRB Wind River Habitat Restoration Strategy for the UCD and a restoration action plan tied to watershed assessment and watershed condition framework for the Forest Service. It would be useful if these two guiding documents were combined to provide an overarching strategic framework to guide restoration in the entire watershed. At a minimum this could serve to better align activities and priority setting as much as possible.

Various efforts are described ranging from road decommissioning and treatment of invasive weeds to fish passage improvement, riparian thinning, and instream and floodplain restoration work. Planned activities for the 2023-2027 time period are included in Appendix A of the proposal and provide solid detail on the project type and planned accomplishments. Objectives for various protection and restoration activities are very broad and qualitative. They do not include quantitative measures for implementation or effectiveness. A series of metrics are provided for measuring accomplishments but lack associated quantities or methods for measurement. An example is the objective for improving stream habitat complexity with a performance indicator of miles of stream protected or improved. The proposal notes, “Each habitat project involves specific habitat objectives, typically involving the physical habitat attributes and outcomes that can be measured before and after project implementation. These are built for each project, based on broader habitat objectives outlined in Section 2 on Goals and Objectives.” No examples of project specific objectives are provided.

Given the long history of steelhead monitoring in the Wind River, it appears that there is a major opportunity to establish a range of restoration outcome objectives addressing a number of metrics for steelhead populations. These could include expected increases in adult and smolt abundance, smolt-to-adult survival, smolts per spawner, etc. No objectives for restoration outcomes are found in the proposal.

The RME program is impressive in its scope and use of innovative tools for biological monitoring and assessment. It includes four major goals and a lengthy series of objectives, which are actually a long list of monitoring questions. While the four goals before the hypotheses were useful, the list of hypotheses seems too general and appears to have been taken from another document. For example, the proponents list collecting data for the major population group (MPG). Steelhead in the Wind River are part of the MPG, so the ISRP is not sure what this question pertains too. All these hypotheses could use some editing and should be made explicit to the Wind River.

In the section on Progress History, the proponents explain that one of their former achievements was to assess effects of spawning non-native Chinook salmon from the hatchery on naturally produced fish. While no detrimental effects were detected when the study was conducted, that was more than 10 years ago, and conditions in the system are likely changing with changes in climate. It could be worth revisiting this question going forward.

It would also be helpful to have additional detail on the relationship to the YKFP Southern Territories Project (199705600) as that project is developed. The Yakama Nation project proposes to pursue work in the Wind River in addition to that which is currently being conducted as part of this project.

Q2: Methods

The proposal includes a detailed description of methods for restoration project development and implementation for each of the major implementers (UCD and USFS). Also included are discussions regarding methods for reviewing project performance and effectiveness. However, the proposal does not include activities/methods for project scale monitoring/evaluation. Although no objectives were provided, the proposal does include a detailed discussion of methods used for public outreach and information sharing. Links to some very professional videos explaining restoration activities for the project are also provided.

For the RME component of the proposal, a detailed series of references for methods are provided. There is also information provided regarding methods for coordination and information sharing between RME and restoration components of the project.

Proponents provide a clear presentation on how they picked projects. Approaches differed from private lands (accomplished by UCD) vs. public lands (accomplished by USFS). The UCD completed an assessment of protection and restoration needs/opportunities on private lands to identify what needed to be accomplished. The USFS developed an overall protection and restoration plan based on watershed analyses and other assessments (fish passage, road condition, habitat surveys, etc.).

Proponents also included a rich discussion of methods they are using to do RM&E. These include description of a monitoring set up using PIT tags and surveys of various kinds. They are not just sampling the end points but have PIT tag arrays in mid portions of some of their tributaries to look at what the parr are doing and where they are going.

Given the importance of increasing summer water temperature to steelhead and the strong likelihood for temperature increases linked to climate change, it is not clear if the habitat improvement projects are being designed or evaluated for potential effects to offset future temperature increases. Certainly, effects are implied (i.e., more shading from riparian trees), but it seems fairly important to be able to better document likely benefits for various restoration actions on stream temperature.

In the Methods section, the proponents emphasize the importance of working with landowners to gain trust, yet they identify reduced funding for conducting outreach and education as a confounding factor. Given the importance of this watershed to steelhead and increasing needs for strong public support and involvement, outreach could be even more important going forward. The proponents should be commended for the outreach efforts that they have conducted, including the video on habitat enhancement.

The proponents provide a list of planned habitat projects in Appendix A that is particularly helpful. However, the proponents indicate that funding for the projects will require matching sources, besides anticipated funds from BPA. Because of this, it is not clear how likely it is that any of these projects will occur, particularly those that are more complicated and/or expensive. It would be useful to indicate in the text or the table itself which (if any) projects are fully funded and which will require matching funds. It is also not clear if anything (besides proposed timing of the project work) might indicate higher vs. lower priority projects. That would be good to include, as would an indication of which organizations will be partnering on the efforts.

Q3: Provisions for M&E

Primary monitoring for the restoration program appears to be limited to project implementation. There is no detailed discussion of how this is accomplished. Due to funding limitations, there does not appear to be any consistent effectiveness monitoring/evaluation for restoration projects, though it is stated that project specific habitat objectives are tracked to determine the general effectiveness of the restoration work. If there is a core program for monitoring project outcomes and general effectiveness, it is not apparent. If these activities are occurring, they should be described.

Some information is provided regarding general fish response to the Hemlock Dam removal project. The ISRP notes that data to date suggest that, relative to the rest of the subbasin, smolt and adult populations in Trout Creek may have benefited from the removal of Hemlock Dam. It also is noted, however, that statistically significant conclusions will likely require many more years of monitoring. A good deal of information provided describes ongoing and consistent review and critique of all aspects of the program. This includes a range of partners as well as the personnel from the RME program. Also included in the proposal are a number of specific examples of using lessons learned to make management adjustments to a wide range of activities and procedures.

For the RME program, numerous key monitoring questions are provided and there is some discussion of results. One potential outcome of the program is the ongoing development of a life cycle model.

The ISRP compliments the proponents for trying to link habitat actions with fish responses. They seem to have a robust monitoring program organized around four broad goals — determining VSP, responses to habitat actions, contribution of the parr life history strategy, and life cycle modeling. It is not clear what pieces of the work they describe are supported by this project. Proponents adapt effectively to new funding opportunities and changes in land ownership, and they coordinate their activities well.

Helpful context provided for how methods have been changed over time in response to lessons learned. However, at the beginning of the goals and objectives section, the proponents indicate that the overall goal of the project is “to restore self-sustaining watershed processes and habitats to the extent that this watershed will be a steelhead stronghold into the future, will be resilient to future climate change and other major disturbances, and will anchor recovery and delisting of steelhead in the Gorge province.” This prompts the question of whether or not various new approaches or adjustments to current restoration methods are being changed in response to changing climate, and if so, how exactly? More information on this issue is needed and would be helpful.

Q4: Results – benefits to fish and wildlife

This is an excellent effort overall. Based on some of the monitoring results, the proponents are getting positive results based on monitoring of fish response. The Wind supports a wild steelhead population, and while it has some habitat issues, much of the watershed is in the southern end of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest (90%) and land use impacts are primarily related to forest practices. Currently management direction for watersheds and associated riparian and aquatic habitat are guided by the Gifford Pinchot NF Forest Plan. An extensive description of a strategy for the protection and restoration of aquatic habitat is provided in the Forest Plan. The VSP monitoring helps to provide a reference point for Lower Columbia River steelhead.

The overall project has completed an impressive range of projects throughout the watershed. An initial priority has been to restore fish passage throughout the Wind River. It is noted that elevated, summer water temperatures occur in much of the mainstem but not in upper tributaries where access to many areas has been blocked, especially for juvenile steelhead, by primarily dams and culverts. Perhaps the most impressive passage project to date is the removal of Hemlock Dam on Trout Creek. This was a very complicated and expensive project that fully removed a large, depression era dam originally intended to provide water to a nearby CCC complex. A very informative video was produced describing the project. Also, monitoring of before and after smolt production is ongoing for the project.

There has also been a good deal of progress in the restoration of riparian and aquatic habitat on private land, involving a variety of landowners and industrial timber companies. This work requires extensive interaction with landowners both before and after completion of project work. Accomplishments to date are impressive. However, it would be useful to see a discussion of the remaining high priority protection and restoration work that remains in the watershed, given that work began in 1998, and funding to support needed work is limited.

RME accomplishments also are impressive with several examples of the development of innovative tools and approaches. There has been excellent coordination between the RME and habitat restoration programs that has been mutually beneficial. Completion of a life cycle model, currently in development, will be a major accomplishment.