This Umabirch Capital Implementation contract is directly linked to other contracts and funding under Project #1987-100-01: Umatilla Watershed - Anadromous Fish Habitat (CTUIR), namely CTUIR's annual contract that supports staff capacity, project management and contract administration throughout CTUIR's area.

Additionally, it parallels the expense contract (CR-366769) being developed concurrently with this contract, which will fund final design, engineering, completion of environmental compliance, construction observation, and cultural resource monitoring at Umabirch. This contract funds a large suite of implementation actions on the Umabirch property over a three-year contract period (FY 2024-2026). Completion of the Umabirch project will follow the acquisition of a 985-acre conservation easement that will, among other things, retire water rights, resulting in increased instream flow, fish passage improvements and large-scale floodplain restoration for anadromous fish benefits, including ESA-listed steelhead. Conservation easement acquisition is expected in mid to late 2024, and in the meantime, landowner permission for implementation of the project is handled through a written agreement. Activities implemented and funded through this contract will be capitalized according to BPA's capitalization policy.

The Umatilla Subbasin has been the homeland of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR), since time immemorial. Riverine systems and floodplains have been dramatically altered since the Euro-American settlement of the region. This has led to the expected habitat changes (i.e. degradation), such as channelization, lack of wetlands and riparian vegetation, and impaired water quality. This in turn has resulted in the steady decline in all fisheries resources within the Umatilla Subbasin.

As a result of this apparent decline, the CTUIR Fisheries Department initiated the Umatilla Anadromous Fish Habitat Project (the Umatilla Project) in 1987 to protect, enhance, and restore functional floodplain, channel, and watershed processes to provide sustainable and healthy habitat for First Foods species. As part of the Northwest Power Conservation Council’s (NPCC) Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program, this project is one of BPA’s actions to provide off-site mitigation for impacts to salmon and steelhead populations and wildlife habitat caused by the construction and operation of FCRPS dams. The Umatilla Project (BPA project 1987-100-01) specifically addresses habitat improvement gaps for the Middle Columbia population of the Umatilla Basin steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) Distinct Population Segment (DPS) identified in the 2020 FCRPS BiOp including lost fishery resources that are of cultural significance of the CTUIR.

The Project utilizes a First Foods-based strategy for aquatic ecosystem restoration organized around the Umatilla River and Upland Visions’ functional Touchstones: water quality and quantity, geomorphology, connectivity, riparian vegetation, and aquatic biota. These Touchstones allow for a clear and direct connection between traditional and contemporary methods, as well as a linkage to primary limiting factors, basin and subbasin plans, and ESA species recovery plans and watershed assessments. This also aligns with a holistic, processed-based methodology for enhancing and beginning the process to restore watershed processes to benefit treaty resources. Since the projects inception, the Umatilla Project has engaged collaboratively with subbasin partners to strategically plan restoration, implement restoration actions, and cost share on critical habitat restoration and passage actions throughout the subbasin.

The Umatilla Anadromous Fish Habitat Program (UAFHP) prioritizes the implementation of restoration actions following the principles of process-based restoration (Roni et al. 2002; Beechie et al 2008; Beechie et al. 2010). This framework includes addressing the fundamental ecological processes responsible for creating and maintaining high functioning habitat: protection, conservation, reconnection, and restoration.  Umatilla watershed limiting factors include in-channel characteristics (geomorphology and habitat complexity), fish passage, riparian/floodplain habitat, sediment and water temperature (2008 Fish Accords).  These projects will address the identified limiting factors from the 2008 Fish Accords, Birch Creek Assessment and Umatilla Watershed Assessment and Action Plan.

ESA-listed steelhead will be addressed with these actions in both the Umatilla River and Birch Creek.  The Umatilla subbasin supports an important natural population of Mid-Columbia steelhead and Birch Creek produces approximately 50% of the current run (Birch Creek Assessment).  The Umabirch suite of actions will dramatically improve juvenile rearing in the project area by increasing stream habitat complexity, floodplain connection, side channel habitat, water temperature and overall survival.  One of the key life-history population limiting factors is over-wintering survival which will be substantially improved with the actions.  Spawning opportunities will be greatly improved with much more diverse habitat conditions in the project area.  Currently, all the steelhead spawning occurs in the upper reaches of the Birch Creek watershed (Birch Creek Assessment).  This improvement also ties to the passage improvements in the project area and the removal of the Peterson Dam (partial barrier) planned to be implemented in 2024 at the upper end of the project area.  Two additional passage barriers in the East Birch Creek are planned to be removed in 2024, opening up an additional 1-5 miles depending on annual stream flows.

ESA-listed bull trout occupy the project area mostly in the Umatilla River for adult over-wintering habitat critical for the population life-history expression.  Bull trout spawn currently in the Umatilla River headwater reaches on National Forest lands where the optimal cold water is present in summer and early fall.  Bull trout adults are suspected to move into the lower reach of Birch Creek in the late-fall, winter and spring but are not recently documented (Birch Creek Assessment).  The habitat enhancements from this contract will greatly increase the pool habitat in the lower reaches of Birch Creek and provide increased opportunities for bull trout use.

Additional species benefits include Spring Chinook salmon rearing habitat, especially over-wintering, in the Umatilla River and the lower reaches of Birch Creek.  This section of the Umatilla River is downstream of the summertime cold-water releases from MacKay Reservoir and provide suitable summer rearing for all anadromous species.  Spring Chinook spawn in the upper reaches of the Umatilla River upstream of the project area.  

Fall Chinook salmon and Coho Salmon spawn in the project area and have been observed in lower Birch Creek in the recent past (Jude Love, personal observation).  The proposed actions are expected to provide substantial improvements to spawning and rearing conditions for both species.  Additionally, the actions will improve habitat and substrate conditions for lamprey which rear in the Umatilla River at the project area.  Both species were extirpated from the Umatilla River from irrigation dam passage barriers in the last century and have been successfully reintroduced to the river and are enhanced from the Umatilla Artificial Propagation (Hatchery) Program.

Specific actions will address:
- Project Area 4 (PA-4) Floodplain restoration on 0.9 miles of existing Birch Creek channel and an additional mile of new channel with associated wetland and floodplain habitat.
- Project Area 3 (PA-3) Floodplain restoration on approximately 0.5 miles of Birch Creek.
- Project Area 2 (PA-2) Relocation/setting back of the Pendleton 2A Levee to allow full floodplain restoration of PA-2 on approximately 2.1 miles of the Umatilla River and 0.3 miles of Birch Creek.
- Project Area 1 (PA-1) Riparian habitat restoration on approximately 0.4 miles of the Umatilla River.