Contract Amendment 4/8/2015
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Mid-Columbia Fishery Resource Office (USFWS MCFRO) currently has a contract with BPA for Entiat IMW effectiveness monitoring for fish populations under ISEMP (FY15 contract number 67971), performance period 2/1/2015 – 1/31/2016.  Due to recent staff turnover (within the last few months) and hiring restrictions from the Service’s regional office USFWS has found itself in the position of not being able to staff enough field technicians for the 2015 field for some or all of the work elements in its current SOW.  In order to ensure the complete implementation of the work detailed in the USFWS SOW for 2015 Terraqua can provide technicians to help support the implementation of some work elements and to assume complete implementation of others:
o With its current staffing levels USFWS will need assistance operating the rotary screw trap 4/15/2015 through 11/22/2015.
o Fish sampling in the mainstem Entiat and in side channels is scheduled to occur in August and October 2015 and in March 2016.  In the past USFWS supplied 6 out 18 personnel.  Terraqua will take on the staffing and implementation of this effort in its entirety.
• In order to facilitate Terraqua providing field staff support to USFWS, USFWS will de-obligate $186,437 from its current FY15 contract.
• Terraqua’s current contract (FY14 contract number 65674) has a performance period 7/1/2014 through 6/30/2015, and a CR set to begin 7/1/2015 (CR 282434) for FY15.
• In order to have Terraqua provide staff for the rotary screw trap by the 4/15/2015 date, Terraqua will need a new CR (Field Staff Support for the Entiat IMW Rotary Screw Trap Operation) for $75,000 of USFWS de-obligation amount.  The performance period for this CR would be 4/15/2015 – 1/30/2016.  This is advantageous for several reasons:
o The start date would allow Terraqua to provide the staff that USFWS needs to continue operation of the rotary screw trap at a critical period in the sampling window.  Without this Terraqua staff USFWS will not be able to run the trap safely following recommended guidelines and it will have to be shut down.
o The end date covers the two periods that USFWS requires Terraqua staff to help man the rotary screw trap (through 11/22/2015) and also aligns the contract with the new start date of the USFWS 2016 contract.  
o This alignment of start dates allows the completion of transferring the remaining funds that need to be taken from the USFWS contract - the total amount needed to implement the mainstem and side channel fish monitoring is not available to Terraqua at this time as USFWS has already partially completed and billed for some of that work since the start of their contract in February.
• The remaining balance of the total de-obligation from USFWS FY15 contract of $111,437 ($186,437 - $75,000) would be added to the total budget in Terraqua’s CR282434.  This $111,437 would cover the mainstem and side channel monitoring work through 1/30/2015 with Terraqua providing all required personnel.
WE G 158 • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Mid-Columbia Fishery Resource Office (USFWS MCFRO) currently has a contract with BPA for Entiat IMW effectiveness monitoring for fish populations under ISEMP (FY15 contract number 67971), performance period 2/1/2015 – 1/31/2016.
• Due to recent staff turnover (within the last few months) and hiring restrictions from the Service’s regional office USFWS has found itself in the position of not being able to staff enough field technicians for the 2015 field for some or all of the work elements in its current SOW.
• In order to ensure the complete implementation of the work detailed in the USFWS SOW for 2015 Terraqua can provide technicians to help support the implementation of some work elements and to assume complete implementation of others:
o With its current staffing levels USFWS will need assistance operating the rotary screw trap 4/15/2015 through 11/22/2015.
o Fish sampling in the mainstem Entiat and in side channels is scheduled to occur in August and October 2015 and in March 2016.  In the past USFWS supplied 6 out 18 personnel.  Terraqua will take on the staffing and implementation of this effort in its entirety.
• In order to facilitate Terraqua providing field staff support to USFWS, USFWS will de-obligate $186,437 from its current FY15 contract.
• Terraqua’s current contract (FY14 contract number 65674) has a performance period 7/1/2014 through 6/30/2015, and a CR set to begin 7/1/2015 (CR 282434) for FY15.
• In order to have Terraqua provide staff for the rotary screw trap by the 4/15/2015 date, Terraqua will need a new CR (Field Staff Support for the Entiat IMW Rotary Screw Trap Operation) for $75,000 of USFWS de-obligation amount.  The performance period for this CR would be 4/15/2015 – 1/30/2016.  This is advantageous for several reasons:
o The start date would allow Terraqua to provide the staff that USFWS needs to continue operation of the rotary screw trap at a critical period in the sampling window.  Without this Terraqua staff USFWS will not be able to run the trap safely following recommended guidelines and it will have to be shut down.
o The end date covers the two periods that USFWS requires Terraqua staff to help man the rotary screw trap (through 11/22/2015) and also aligns the contract with the new start date of the USFWS 2016 contract.  
o This alignment of start dates allows the completion of transferring the remaining funds that need to be taken from the USFWS contract - the total amount needed to implement the mainstem and side channel fish monitoring is not available to Terraqua at this time as USFWS has already partially completed and billed for some of that work since the start of their contract in February.
• The remaining balance of the total de-obligation from USFWS FY15 contract of $111,437 ($186,437 - $75,000) would be added to the total budget in Terraqua’s current CR, to give a performance period total of $939,195.  This $111,437 would cover the mainstem and side channel monitoring work through 1/30/2015 with Terraqua providing all required personnel.

This de-obligations of funds means that USFWS is no longer responsible for fulfilling the work described under the following work elements:
WE G 157 Conduct a fish monitoring study on the Entiat River as part of the IMW
WE H 158 Mark/tag juvenile salmonids using PIT tags as part of the IMW
WE I 157 Conduct mainstem off-channel effectiveness monitoring as part of the Entiat IMW
WE J 158 PIT tagging juvenile salmonids in off-channel habitat as part of the Entiat IMW
WE F 157 Operate and maintain PIT tag detection arrays on the Entiat and Mad Rivers

The de-obligation of funds means that Terraqua will provide personnel to support the operation of the rotary screw trap following an agreed upon schedule for work described under the following work element:
WE E 157 Operate smolt traps


Contract Description: The Integrated Status and Effectiveness Monitoring Program (ISEMP, 2003-017-00) is an ongoing collaborative effort to design, test, implement and evaluate Status and Trends Monitoring for salmon and steelhead populations and their habitat, and watershed-scale Effectiveness Monitoring for management actions impacting salmon and steelhead populations and habitat in the Interior Columbia River Basin.

ISEMP explicitly addresses work requirements of many 2008 FCRPS Biological Opinion RPAs (56.1, 56.2, 56.3, 57.1, 57.2, 57.3, 57.4, 57.5) and is directly related to additional 2008 FCRPS Biological Opinion implementation strategy requirements and recommendations. ISEMP takes a pilot-project approach to the research and development of monitoring by implementing experimental programs in several major subbasins of the Interior Columbia: the Wenatchee, Entiat, Methow, John Day, South Fork Salmon and Lemhi River basins. The overall goal of the project is to provide regional salmon management agencies with the data, information and tools necessary to design efficient and effective monitoring programs.

Specifically, ISEMP generates quantitative guidance on and examples of: the robustness and limitations of population and habitat monitoring protocols, indicators and metrics; sampling design approaches for the distribution of monitoring effort in time and space; analytical approaches to the evaluation of monitoring data, information and programs; effective data management and communication designs that support the use, standardization and compilation of implementation, compliance, status, trends and effectiveness monitoring data by regional data generators and decision makers; and finally the design and implementation of watershed-scale restoration actions to maximize both the biological impact and associated learning opportunities resulting from the design and implementation strategy.

Through its work to date, ISEMP has developed expertise in the coordination and implementation of large-scale monitoring data collection programs. Applying this experience, ISEMP coordinates the installation, maintenance and calibration of in-stream PIT tag arrays across the Snake River basin and is designing and coordinating the implementation of a Columbia River basin-wide stream habitat status and trends monitoring. These programmatic implementation facets of ISEMP leverage previous experience with logistics and social factors to effectively implement comprehensive, standardized monitoring research and development at an unprecedented scale.  

This contract is one of several contracts that will implement this project.  Each contract is responsible for an end of contract progress report.  Additionally, a project level "synthesis report" will also be produced under this project and data and analysis from this contract will be utilized in the production of that project level report.  The synthesis report is a deliverable under the Terraqua contract (not this contract) under this project.  

This contract is one of several contracts that will implement this project.  The final report for this contract will contain data that will 1) be submitted to NOAA FISHERIES (also a contractor under this project) for use in a project level integrated Annual Report and 2) be submitted to BPA as a contract final report according to the terms of this contract.  

This Scope of Work (SOW) will enable the Bonneville Power Administration (Bonneville) to implement the Project in the Entiat River Subbasin under an Intensively Monitored Watershed (IMW) framework with the objectives of (1) determining the effectiveness of restoration efforts in the Entiat River, (2) estimating spring Chinook salmon and steelhead smolt production, and (3) estimating life history parameters of spring Chinook and steelhead.  Specifically, within this SOW, the USFWS will achieve these objectives by 1) estimating the population, growth and survival of fish within the Entiat River Subbasin by conducting mark-recapture events at locations distributed along the river  2) estimating the smolt production of spring Chinook salmon and steelhead for the Entiat River Subbasin in 2012, and 3) estimating life history parameters of spring Chinook and steelhead by capturing and PIT tagging juvenile spring Chinook and steelhead.    


Technical methodologies for snorkel surveys and smolt trap conducted under this SOW will follow protocols specified in the following document unless Upper Columbia Regional Technical Team and USFWS mutually agree to changes to these methodologies:

Hillman, T.W.  2006.  Monitoring strategy for the Upper Columbia Basin: Draft report August 2006.  Prepared for Upper Columbia Regional Technical Team, Wenatchee, Washington.