BPA Project Number:  2003-011-00
CR-209369
Performance/Budget Period: October 1, 2011 – September 30, 2013

Technical Contact/Project Lead:  Catherine Corbett
Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership
811 SW Naito Parkway, Suite 410
Portland, Oregon  97204
Phone: (503) 226-1565 Ext. 240
Fax:  (503) 226-1580
corbett@lcrep.org

Contracting Contact: Tom Argent
Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership
811 SW Naito Parkway, Suite 410
Portland, Oregon  97204
Phone: (503) 226-1565 Ext. 242
Fax:  (503) 226-1580
argent@lcrep.org

BPA Project Manager:  Anne Creason
Bonneville Power Administration
905 NE 11th Avenue
Portland, Oregon  97208
Phone:  (503) 230-3859
Fax:  (503) 230-3049
amcreason@bpa.gov


Background

The Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership (Estuary Partnership) Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (Management Plan), completed in 1999, calls for 16,000 acres of habitat to be restored in the lower Columbia River and estuary.  This goal, once achieved, will restore 50% of what has been lost since settlement. Subsequently, the Management Plan was revised and now includes a goal of restoring 19,000 acres of habitat by 2014. Since 2000, the Estuary Partnership has been implementing a habitat restoration program that includes funding from Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  The program includes on-the-ground restoration, development of a regional habitat prioritization framework for prioritizing restoration projects, action effectiveness monitoring to determine the efficacy of restoration actions, creation of scientifically-based evaluation criteria to evaluate project proposals, and the establishment of an infrastructure for soliciting, developing, selecting, and funding priority restoration projects.  To implement this program, the Estuary Partnership staff work regularly with and rely on the Estuary Partnership’s Science Work Group, a committee of technical experts from throughout the region from the public and private sectors with specific knowledge in related sciences. The geographic scope of this program is within the study area of the Estuary Partnership, and encompasses the lower 146 river miles of the Columbia River from Bonneville Dam to the Pacific Ocean, including the tidally-influenced portions of its tributaries. The onset of the program coincided with the completion of the report “An Ecosystem-Based Approach to Habitat Restoration Projects with Emphasis on Salmonids in the Columbia River Estuary”. The Estuary Partnership’s habitat restoration program was designed, in part, to meet several of the recommendations of this report, most notably:

•Finalize the proposed project selection guidelines
•Prioritize restoration projects that promote the long-term sustainability of ecosystem function and structure at the landscape scale wherever possible
•Perform effectiveness monitoring for implemented projects and develop methods to evaluate cumulative effects of multiple projects; and
•Establish a data management system for Columbia River and estuary habitat restoration (Johnson et al., 2003).

This statement of work describes the work elements, milestones and deliverables for the Habitat Restoration Program efforts that will be implemented from October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2013.

Review of Prior Work

The Estuary Partnership’s habitat restoration program functions as the umbrella restoration program focused on the mainstem of the lower Columbia River and estuary (LCRE). Through the program the Estuary Partnership established a competitive review and selection process for project proposals; refined and used a rigorous set of project selection criteria; developed and used a habitat restoration prioritization framework for comparing potential ecological uplift from projects; established an action effectiveness monitoring program; completed an inventory of shoreline condition; developed a system of reference sites and supported more than 50 restoration projects that resulted in nearly 2,500 acres protected and/or restored and opened over 50 miles of stream habitat.  

While past restoration efforts in the lower Columbia River and estuary have been successful and progress has been made restoring estuarine habitat, much remains to be accomplished. Since 1999, more than 130 projects of various types and sizes have been implemented in the lower Columbia River and estuary. Together, these projects have resulted in more than 16,200 acres protected and/or restored. However, the next wave of restoration is likely to require larger, more complicated projects that require changes in the way restoration is approached to ensure that future restoration efforts are successful. It will require a more focused, scientifically-based, regional habitat restoration strategy and close coordination and cooperation amongst the multiple restoration partners working in the lower river.

During the past several years, the Estuary Partnership has developed key tools, including the Columbia River Estuary Ecosystem Classification (Classification), updated bathymetry and landcover (from the Ecosystem Monitoring Program #2003-07-00); Tiers 1 and 2 of the Restoration Prioritization Framework and a shoreline condition inventory. These tools are geared toward identifying key locations to site habitat restoration efforts to aid in the recovery of ESA listed salmon and restoration of ecosystem structure and function as well as addressing several tasks in Johnson et al. (2003). The Estuary Partnership is using these and other tools in coordination with the Action Agencies, the states of Oregon and Washington, NOAA, FWS, Columbia Land Trust, and others to identify high priority areas for habitat protection, restoration, enhancement and creation. The next step is to evaluate land ownership of the identified areas to determine practicality of restoration activities and to stitch together larger projects by involving multiple sites. The ultimate goal of these efforts is to support landscape scale projects that are developed, designed and implemented strategically in those areas where the greatest uplift for ecosystem restoration and salmon recovery can be achieved, while at the same time being able to opportunistically fund other projects with important ecological benefits.

As partners are working on identifying key locations for restoration efforts, the Estuary Partnership is also working with regional partners to overcome challenges for implementation. The region has identified three key challenges impeding the next phase of restoration: 1) access to technical assistance allowing planning and design of larger, more complicated projects, 2) availability of lands on which restoration can occur and 3) time/staffing resources for community and landowner relationship building. Many local governments, watershed councils, conservation districts, and other entities lack the resources necessary to design, secure financing and implement complicated, large scale habitat restoration projects. Designing complex restoration projects requires significant staff resources and funding as well as a broad array of technical expertise. To address the technical expertise issue, the Estuary Partnership began providing technical assistance to local entities through its Habitat Restoration Program in FY08. The Estuary Partnership is coordinating with the Action Agencies and partners to collaboratively develop innovative methods for overcoming the other two issues.

Work Efforts for October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2013

The Estuary Partnership will continue to work with partners to identify, develop, design and implement habitat restoration projects. Restoration projects will focus on tidally influenced habitats in the lower Columbia River and estuary that provide benefits to salmonids. Project types may include dike breaches, tidegate removal or retrofits, large wood placement, riparian plantings and habitat creation.

The Estuary Partnership will also continue to identify, develop, design and manage restoration projects. In this role, the Estuary Partnership will provide information to BPA for potential projects, collect baseline data, develop scopes of work, budgets, and designs and oversee construction for those projects selected for funding. The Estuary Partnership will coordinate with contractors, engineers, and agencies as needed, and will ensure compliance with all applicable laws. As part of its Pile Structure program, the Estuary Partnership will continue to work on identifying potential pile structure modification or removal projects.  

The Estuary Partnership will provide engineering, design, hydrogeology and other technical assistance to restoration practitioners. Technical assistance will reduce upfront risks to and address the often limited resources of Watershed Councils, land trusts and others who implement habitat restoration projects. Technical assistance will include developing conceptual designs for restoration projects, reviewing initial restoration project conceptual designs, identifying data needs for project engineering designs, and estimating project implementation costs. We anticipate these resources will improve project designs, reduce uncertainties in implementation, and reduce unanticipated construction issues.

The Estuary Partnership will continue to host quarterly “project development coordination” meetings with restoration practioners to discuss on-going and potential projects to ensure coordination and technical exchange.  Participants discuss gaps in restoration; pros and cons of techniques; logistical and long-term maintenance issues; action effectiveness monitoring; methods for documenting project objectives and actions and other ways to improve restoration projects in the LCRE.

Estuary Partnership staff will continue to work with partners and Action Agencies to track restoration project information, including wetted acres and river miles restored; status; permitting and other issues; types of restoration actions; costs; and other information. The Estuary Partnership staff will continue to track this information in a central database and work on making this available to partners with different levels of permission for read/write accessibility. The Estuary Partnership will provide maps to the Action Agencies of results and provide project descriptions and maps to the public over the Estuary Partnership website for projects after receiving approval from partners and Action Agencies. The “project development coordination” meetings and restoration project inventory database will allow the Estuary Partnership and its partners to track the status of restoration projects and help ensure that restoration in the LCRE is implemented in a coordinated manner.

The Estuary Partnership will also obtain a comprehensive, geo-spatial dataset of fish passage barriers located throughout the LCRE. Several datasets for individual types of fish passage barriers currently exist (e.g., culverts). For this project, the Estuary Partnership will compile these individual datasets into one comprehensive inventory of all barriers, verify information through site visits and expand information on the barriers to include ownership and their current condition descriptions. This dataset will support numerous efforts, including the identification and prioritization of potential habitat restoration projects, localized floodplain hydraulic modeling for potential restoration sites, and the ability to provide a lower river wide assessment of current conditions and restoration efforts, with regard to hydrologic impairment. The passage barriers to be documented will include linear levee features, culverts and tidegates. Other artificial impediments to flow, such as water control structures and fish ladders, may also be incorporated if encountered during site reconnaissance efforts.

The Estuary Partnership will work with partners (e.g., US Geologic Survey, University of Washington) to complete a synthesis report of the Columbia River Estuary Ecosystem Classification (Classification; from Ecosystem Monitoring Program project #2003-07-00). The document will be focused on describing the applicability of the Classification to restoration practioners, managers of estuary research and monitoring, land use planners, resource managers, etc. The report will include the following information: a description of the Classification at all six levels; a summary of hydrologic and geomorphic processes used in delineating Level 5, Geomorphic Catena and a discussion of how processes have been affected by anthropogenic activities such as diking, flow regulation, dredging and sediment transport. The final report will be provided on the Estuary Partnership and USGS websites with interactive links for mapping products and additional information.

Additionally, to aid in the development and implementation of the expanded Action Agency habitat program, project selection, and RME requirements, the Action Agencies and the Estuary Partnership will meet regularly to collaboratively plan future tasks, resolve problems that arise, discuss emerging issues and make decisions. In addition, the Action Agencies and the Estuary Partnership will work collaboratively to arrange field visits throughout the contract period to help in site selection. Participants of these visits could include Action Agency staff, contractors, RPA 37 Expert Regional Technical Group (or ERTG), elected officials, members or staff of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and others and will be determined on an ad hoc basis.

In summary, under this contract the Estuary Partnership will work in coordination with the Action Agencies, partners and others to accomplish the following:

(1) Continue the success of the habitat restoration program for the lower Columbia River and estuary (Bonneville Dam to mouth of river) and support efforts to move towards strategic project implementation.
(2) Provide technical assistance to restoration partners to address the limited resources of watershed councils, land trusts and others pursuing habitat restoration projects.
(3) Ensure long term support and coordination of restoration activities and techniques through regular meetings of restoration practitioners, expanded project tracking and site visits, planned and arranged in close collaboration with Action Agency staff.
(4) Manage restoration project development through construction tasks at Estuary Partnership –led project sites,
(5) Support project implementation efforts by partners to ensure restoration activities are moving toward a more concerted, strategic method of ecosystem restoration,
(6) Continue to develop and advance the use of datasets and other tools to better inform project identification, selection and implementation to ensure the long term success on both individual project and program-wide scales.

The outcome of these approaches is a coordinated restoration program at both the program and project level that provides a high likelihood of sustainable project success over the long term.