The Klickitat River Operations and Maintenance (K-O&M) Project serves as the project to fund staff and support O&M of existing and new YKFP infrastructure developed per the Klickitat River Anadromous Fisheries Master Plan (KMP). Facilities include the Castile Falls Enumeration Facility, the Lyle Falls Fishway & Research Facility, and the Klickitat Field Office & Maintenance Shop.

This project primarily involves salary support, facility maintenance, and permitting requirements. There is no science or monitoring of hatchery operations by this specific project, so the ISRP found the project title to be somewhat misleading. The title would be clearer if it included the words "Facility Operations and Maintenance."

Hatchery operations and monitoring are reportedly covered by Mitchell Act funding rather than BPA funding. BPA Project 199506335 (YKFP Klickitat Subbasin M&E) and BPA Project 1997701325 (Yakima River O&M) did not address hatchery operations and monitoring in the Klickitat Basin, so there was no opportunity for the ISRP to review hatchery operations in the Klickitat watershed. However, the ISRP recently reviewed hatchery operations as part of the hatchery Master Plan review (ISRP 2018-4, ISRP 2018-10). The ISRP anticipates that the YN is addressing issues raised by ISRP 2018-4 and ISRP 2018-10, including:

1. Provide performance standards to enable assessment of in-hatchery performance, fish health, the proportion tagged, tag retention probability, and the proportion of smolts that mature as mini-jacks. Performance standards are a key component of an adaptive management process. 
   
   
2. Describe how minijack abundance will be estimated in the three hatchery lines (H1, H2, and N1). 
   
   
3. Expand the description of the adaptive management process to include a longer than annual cycle of review (perhaps at 5-year intervals) through which managers will formally consider making major changes to the program.

Q1: Clearly defined objectives and outcomes

The Klickitat River Operations and Maintenance (K-O&M) Project funds staff and supports O&M of existing and new YKFP infrastructure developed per the Klickitat River Anadromous Fisheries Master Plan (KMP). Facilities include the Castile Falls Enumeration Facility, the Lyle Falls Fishway and Research Facility, and the Klickitat Field Office and Maintenance Shop.

The proposal provides a list of objectives. This project primarily involves support for salaries, facility maintenance, and permitting requirements. There is no science or monitoring.

In future proposals, the ISRP recommends that the proponents recast the project objectives in the requested SMART Objective format: (1) Specific and clearly defined, (2) Measurable (quantifiable), 3) Achievable and testable, (4) Relevant and applicable to the Program with benefits to fish and wildlife, and (5) Time-bound with clear milestones and end dates. As is, the objectives lack measurable expected outcomes (e.g., number of training sessions to be held in the contract period, number of visits to screened intakes) and timelines (e.g., annual frequency of maintenance activities). These are important aspects to describe so the adequacy of methods and project performance can be assessed.

Q2: Methods

To effectively operate and maintain Klickitat subbasin BPA-funded facilities, the Klickitat O&M staff has developed seasonal maintenance schedules to ensure data collection is maintained through the Klickitat M&E Project 199506325. Details regarding methods and effort used to maintain the facilities are not provided.

Q3: Provisions for M&E

Klickitat O&M has reportedly evaluated all existing facilities and has made modifications that have made them more robust, easier to use, and less prone to down time. Klickitat O&M also does outreach in coordination with other YKFP staff to allow groups such as schools and outside fisheries professionals to tour the facilities.

The project uses the evaluation methodology in BPA’s (1996) final EIS, as do most projects proposed by the Yakama Nation, but no project-specific examples are described by the proponents to explain how they have used this process in practice.

Q4: Results – benefits to fish and wildlife

The Klickitat Operations and Maintenance Program was developed to operate, maintain, repair all BPA supported facilities in the Klickitat Basin after the capital construction of the Lyle Falls Fishway and the Castile Falls Fish Enumeration Facility was complete. Additionally, Klickitat O&M staff provide logistical and technical support to other BPA-funded programs in the basin. This is intended to maximize time for the facilities to operate, keep the equipment in good working order, and support construction and technical components of other programs.

Run	Total Number	Strategy	Origin	100% Marked?	Contract for Marking?
Spring Chinook	600,000	spawned/reared	Klickitat Hatchery	Y	WDFW
Coho	1,000,000	fertilized eggs	Lewis Hatchery	Y	WDFW
Coho	2,500,000	direct plant smolts	Washougal	Y	WDFW
Steelhead	120,000	direct plant	Skamania Hatchery	Y	WDFW
Fall Chinook	4,000,000	fertilized eggs	Little White Salmon NFH	N	WDFW (for portion that is marked)

Fundable in Part to complete the Step One review including revision of the Master Plan to reflect due consideration of other alternatives.

Funding is qualified, in that the completed Master Plan needs to include a "no artificial production" alternative modeled to achieve the plan's objectives for steelhead and spring Chinook in the upper Klickitat subbasin. Modeling should provide some type of evidence (model, habitat data, EDT modeling, etc.) that shows the likelihood of achieving upper Klickitat basin objectives with and without supplementation. Modeling should evaluate the potential of a passive natural rebuilding approach over an appropriate response period, perhaps 10-12 years (~ 3 generations), that if not successful could retrigger consideration of the hatchery supplementation program proposed. A habitat-based model might predict the numbers of wild recruits necessary to fully seed the upper part of the watershed - even EDT could do that and would therefore indicate whether supplementation is needed to achieve the upper basin objectives.

The ISRP is supportive of the Master Plan's vision of separating lower river fall Chinook and coho hatchery and harvest operations from the upper river rebuilding objectives for steelhead and spring Chinook. This component of Klickitat subbasin anadromous fish management activity is for fish rearing. A portion of the fish rearing is for reduced numbers of coho and fall Chinook to be reared at the Wahkiacus facility and released lower in the subbasin than they now are. It is hoped that this will reduce any deleterious ecological interactions between released hatchery fish and natural steelhead and spring Chinook. The ISRP noted that this would require a rigorous monitoring program. The sponsor referred the ISRP to the general response for proposal 198811535. The ISRP will need to evaluate this dimension of the program in the Master Plan M&E.