1998-019-00: Proposals

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Proposals

A Proposal is an application to continue existing work or start new work. While historically the Program solicited for all types of projects at once, starting in fiscal year 2009, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and BPA are reviewing and soliciting for projects that are similar in nature and intent. These "categorical" reviews started with Wildlife projects and continue with Research, Monitoring, & Evaluation (RME) and Artificial Production (Hatchery) projects.

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Project 1998-019-00 - Wind River Watershed

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	Proposal Number	Proposal Version	Type	State	Project	Title	Description	Creator	Percent Complete	Proposal Budget Limit	Create Date	Last Updated	Primary Contact	Proponent	Purpose	Emphasis	Solicitation	Portfolio	Biop Fish Accord
		Proposal Version 1	Existing Project	Pending BPA Response				Patrick Connolly (Inactive)


	RMECAT-1998-019-00	Proposal Version 1	Existing Project	Pending BPA Response	1998-019-00	Wind River Watershed	The Wind River Watershed project is a collaborative effort to restore wild steelhead in the Wind River through habitat restoration and the creation of a wild steelhead sanctuary. The four agencies forming the nucleus of this partnership are the US Forest Service, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, USGS's Columbia River Research Laboratory, and Underwood Conservation District. This partnership was established in the early 1990's and, with support from BPA, has continued to conduct important habitat restoration, research, monitoring, evaluation, and coordination activities across the subbasin. The project works at multiple levels to identify and characterize key limiting habitat factors in the Wind River, to restore degraded habitats and watershed processes, to measure and track fish populations, life histories, and interactions, and to share information across agency and non-agency boundaries. In the Columbia Basin Monitoring Review Forum, it was recommended that the Wind River watershed be designated as an intensively monitored watershed (IMW), and in 2007, the Bonneville Power Administration recommended that the fisheries agencies transition from VSP monitoring of key watersheds (Trout, Upper Wind, and Panther) into a Before-After-Control-Impact (BACI) design to evaluate the anticipated steelhead response to the removal of Hemlock Dam and other restoration in Trout Creek. We propose to incorporate a BACI design, with Trout Creek a good candidate for designation as a treatment watershed. Upper Wind and/or Panther Creek have much potential to serve as control watersheds. These designation would allow the BACI design to test dam removal (Trout Creek) , and to test habitat restoration (Upper Wind or Panther), against a control (Panther or Upper Wind). For fish monitoring, the goals of this prohect are VSP monitoring, life stage survival monitoring, and monitoring the response of steelhead to the removal of Hemlock Dam. The monitoring of habitat status/trends will be conducted in Wind River under the Columbia Habitat Monitoring Program (CHaMP) that is being proposed under a related project by the Integrated Status and Trend Monitoring Program (ISEMP). This work will include: monitoring of habitat/channel/riparian/macroinvertebrate conditions using the ISEMP recommended habitat protocol at an annual panel of twenty-five (25) sites selected using a general random-tessellation stratified (GRTS) design guided by the ISEMP site selection protocol, and other ISEMP tools, standards, and training provided by ISEMP. Data collected under this deliverable will be entered and controlled for accuracy and quality by the proposer within data management tools provided by ISEMP and will be stored/archived for analysis in the STEM data bank.	Patrick Connolly (Inactive)			06/07/2010	07/08/2011	Patrick Connolly (Inactive)	National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Underwood Conservation District (UCD), US Forest Service (USFS), US Geological Survey (USGS), Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW)	Programmatic	None	RME / AP Category Review	RM&E Cat. Review - RM&E	BiOp
	GEOREV-1998-019-00	Proposal Version 1	Existing Project	Pending BPA Response	1998-019-00	Wind River Watershed	The Wind River Watershed project is a collaborative effort to restore wild steelhead in the Wind River through habitat restoration and creation of a wild steelhead sanctuary. The project includes a strong RM&E component designed to provide local fish population and life history data to Wind River partner organizations, and to evaluate steelhead population response to habitat restoration. The four organizations involved in this partnership are the US Forest Service, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, USGS Columbia River Research Laboratory, and Underwood Conservation District. This partnership was established in the early 1990s and with support from BPA since 1998, has continued working together to accomplish important habitat restoration, research, monitoring, evaluation, education and coordination activities across the watershed. The Forest Service and Underwood Conservation District are responsible for planning, designing and implementing habitat restoration projects on federal and non-federal lands in the watershed. The USGS and WDFW are currently focused on RM&E work throughout the watershed, and have implemented a BACI design for evaluation of steelhead response to habitat actions in Trout Creek (i.e. Hemlock Dam Removal). This project currently serves as an Intensively Monitored Watershed (IMW) and is proposed to incorporate additional habitat monitoring through the Columbia Habitat Monitoring Program (CHaMP). This project is particularly important because a) steelhead populations in the watershed have declined dramatically over time; b) steelhead populations in the Wind River have been prioritized for recovery to very high levels of viability; c) hatchery supplementation is not part of the solution; d) the watershed has a high potential for habitat improvement; e) the Wind River Watershed Project has a proven track record of completing high quality habitat projects while bringing significant cost share to the table; f) improvements made in the watershed will be well protected over time since much of the watershed is under federal ownership; and g) the watershed is likely to become more important to steelhead over time as climate change scenarios materialize. With a large percentage of the watershed under Forest Service management, future land use decisions across much of the watershed will be guided by the Northwest Forest Plan, which provides substantial protection to riparian areas and streams. The habitat restoration objectives for this project arise from a need to address both legacy habitat issues on national forest lands, as well as habitats on private and other lands within the watershed. For this watershed to function as a wild steelhead sanctuary, and a stronghold for steelhead into the future, we must have diverse, well-distributed, and replicate habitats that are self-sustaining and resilient to changes in climate and local disturbance processes. To that extent, the habitat work described in the project has a three-pronged approach: 1) to restore self-sustaining watershed processes whereby streams, riparian areas and upslope hillsides function to deliver high quality water to those reaches supporting fish; 2) to restore connectivity and access to aquatic and riparian habitats that have been disconnected by either dams, culverts, or other anthropogenic causes; and, 3) to provide for and accelerate development of habitat diversity and water quality in stream channels and riparian areas that have been impacted over time by logging, splash damming, mining, stream cleanouts and other activities that were undertaken over the past century and more. We have moved forward in meeting these objectives by undertaking projects across the full spectrum of watershed functions. We have decommissioned roads to reduce sediment loading to the stream network, to correct and restore hillslope drainage patterns and peak flow characteristics of the drainage, and to remove culverts that once impeded upstream movement of fish. We have planted forest vegetation in riparian areas, and thinned conifer stands in those riparian areas that were overly dense, and where inter-tree competition limited the diversity and health of the riparian forest. We have removed dams and upgraded culverts to re-establish connectivity of lower stream reaches with their productive headwaters, and to re-initiate sediment transport to downstream reaches. We have also placed thousands of whole trees and logs into active streams and floodplains where wood has been systematically removed over past decades, and where young forest plantations are not yet able to contribute these critical habitat components to the aquatic environment at the levels that are necessary. By providing woody debris to impacted streams, those streams are better able to develop pool habitats, to sort sediments and create high quality spawning beds, and to provide a range of habitat types suitable to the range of steelhead life histories. This proposal seeks funding to continue habitat restoration in the WInd River as described below.	Patrick Connolly (Inactive)			12/07/2012	11/26/2013	Patrick Connolly (Inactive)	US Forest Service (USFS), Underwood Conservation District (UCD), US Geological Survey (USGS), Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW)	Habitat	None	2013 Geographic Category Review	2013 Geographic Review	BiOp