Summary: This contract supports the continuation of management activities on the Isqúulktpe Watershed Project, and provides direction and support for planned implementation actions during the contract period.  Many of the major tasks are annual in nature, and contribute to ongoing protection and enhancement of the fish and wildlife habitat values, and the ecosystem health and function, desired within the watershed.

Project activities typically focus on the following activities: 1) Planning and Design; 2) Construction and Implementation; 3) Operations and Maintenance; and 4) limited, site-specific Monitoring and Evaluation.  Management efforts undertaken under this contract are designed to promote watershed health and ecosystem function, protect, enhance and mitigate target wildlife mitigation species, and nurture self-sustaining habitats for fish and wildlife.  

Status:  The current SOW provides direction for actions planned or implemented during the contract period. Recurrent management priorities reflected as ongoing activities include:
  --  Administer and operate the watershed habitat area
  --  Renew grazing leases to provide rest from livestock grazing
  --  Monitor and maintain existing fence to control trespass livestock
  --  Maintain wildlife water facilities and spring exclosures
  --  Continue monitoring and treatment strategies to control and eradicate weeds
  --  Continue treatment of Himalayan blackberry, which out-competes desirable vegetation
  --  Maintain seasonal road closure to protect habitat for spawning steelhead
  --  Continue efforts to control sulfur cinquefoil, and re-vegetate with native plants
  --  Plant native grasses and shrubs on previously treated blackberry control sites

Added management actions, newly initiated work, or activities expected to be expanded during the contract period include the following tasks/purposes (2021):
  --  Improve forest habitat on approximately 150 acres on and adjacent to Telephone and /or Gibbon Ridges, identify and cruise stands, develop contract for hand-thinning or prescribed burning in FY22 if sufficient acreage can be identified.  
  --  Monitor any repair of section of Isqúulktpe Creek where it has washed out the road, restore access to the wildlife area parking and kiosks, enhance public access and displays, and improve in-stream and riparian habitat conditions.

Background: The Isqúulktpe Creek watershed is a fifth-order subbasin located in the Umatilla River Basin, encompassing approximately 24,200 acres.  Located on the western slopes of the Blue Mountains in Oregon, Isqúulktpe (formerly known as Squaw) Creek, drains into the Umatilla River upstream of Pendleton, Oregon.  Topography of the Isqúulktpe Watershed is typical of the Blue Mountain foothills, with broad flat ridges dissected by steep canyons with a wide variety of aspects.

The CTUIR developed the Isqúulktpe Watershed Project under the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program in 1995.  (Note: In 2009, the spelling of the project title was changed from Iskuulpa to Isqúulktpe.)  The purpose of the project is to offset habitat losses from, and provide in-kind mitigation for, the impacts of construction and operation of the John Day and McNary hydroelectric projects.  The Project emphasizes two principle strategies for acquiring, protecting, and enhancing habitat to meet these project purposes: fee acquisitions; and the leasing of Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) administered grazing allotments, and resting them from livestock use.