 | GEOREV-2007-393-00 | Proposal Version 1 | Existing Project | Proposal Vetted | 2007-393-00 | Protect and Restore Northeast Oregon/Southeast Washington | The Protect and Restore Northeast Oregon/southeast Washington project will pursue activities in regard to implementing actions that addresses Habitat Strategy 1, protect and improve tributary habitat based on biological needs and prioritized actions, identified in the Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS) 2008 Biological Opinion (BiOp). RPA 35 of the FCPRS 2008 BiOp calls for implementation of tributary habitat projects in 2010-2018 to achieve habitat quality improvements for steelhead and Chinook salmon in several drainages within northeast Oregon, including the Grande Ronde River, Imnaha River, Joseph Creek, Wallowa River, and the Tucannon River and Asotin Creek in Washington. Limiting factors all watersheds were recently updated during the FCPRS BiOp Expert Panel process using NOAA’s newly developed standardized terminology. The expert panel included staff from the NPT DFRM Watershed Division, National Forests, Snake River Salmon Recovery Board, Grande Ronde Model Watershed, NOAA, ODFW, WDFW, and others using the best data and assessments available, along with the professional opinion when data was not available. The results of this exercise identified limiting factors for all watersheds, weighted them according to need and identified habitat projects to improve habitat conditions for listed species within each subbasin.
The Tribe proposes to address the primary factors limiting to abundance and productivity of the focal species. The Tribe and their partners in each subbasin have prioritized restoration projects to address these limiting factors based on the Subbasin Plans (NPCC 2005), watershed assessments, current data, and the Expert Panel process (2012).
Improvements called for in the 2008 FCRPS BiOp will be realized through the following objectives and deliverables:
Objectives of this proposal include:
OBJ-1: Oversee development of project proposals compatible with needs that integrate watershed, restoration and management objectives and activities.
OBJ-2: Identify high priority habitat areas requiring protection or restoration.
OBJ-3: Participate in existing and contribute to the further development of local watershed and technical advisory groups.
Deliverables that will be accomplished through the implementation of habitat improvement projects that address limiting factors include:
1. Coordination with partners to identify projects that address the highest limiting factors within the subbasins.
2. Identify and select habitat projects through working with local stakeholders to identify habitat projects in the Grande Ronde and Imnaha subbasins and Pine Watershed in Northeast Oregon and the Tucannon and Asotin Creek watersheds in Southeast Washington.
3. Produce design and/or specifications for projects selected for implementation.
4. Manage and administer projects, seek additional funds for project implementation, and coordinate with partners from project inception through its completion.
Monitoring of restoration efforts is a key component to determining the success of each project as well as feeding the adaptive management response loop to ensure the most successful techniques are being used during implementation. Implementation and compliance monitoring will occur on each project. Action effectiveness monitoring may be applied to projects through the “Action Effectiveness Monitoring of Tributary Habitat Improvement: a programmatic approach for the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program” (Roni et al. 2013). Status and trend monitoring, though the CHaMP protocol, is slated to be carried out starting in 2014 through BPA project 2002-068-00 .
An important goal of the Watershed Division is the timely reporting of science-based data. The Nez Perce Tribe Department of Fisheries Resource Management (DFRM) now has the equipment infrastructure necessary to ensure that this will be achieved. DFRM annual reports, metadata, and performance measure data will be available on the new DFRM website at http://www.nptfisheries.org and the Nez Perce Tribe Watershed Division’s geospatial, web-accessible database at http://imsland.nezperce.org/DFRMWatershed/nexviewer_flex.html. | Emmit Taylor, Jr. | | | 01/07/2013 | 02/14/2014 | Emmit Taylor, Jr. | Nez Perce Tribe | Habitat | None | 2013 Geographic Category Review | 2013 Geographic Review | BiOp |
| 2013NEW-2007-393-00 | Proposal Version 1 | Existing Project | ISRP - Pending First Review | 2007-393-00 | Protect and Restore Northeast Oregon/Southeast Washington | The Northwest Power and Conservation Council made a decision in November 2013 that the Nez Perce Tribe should submit a revised proposal by the end of calendar year 2013 for Council review based on ISRP comments. Those comments stated, "The need for this project is unclear. The project appears to duplicate many functions of the Grande Ronde Model Watershed (GRMW)….how their project differed significantly from the GRMW….The ISRP suggests that this project be consolidated with the GRMW program and possibly, with existing Tucannon planning activities, or that the sponsors provide a scientifically defensible reason for not doing so."
Our (Nez Perce Tribe) response included a lengthy explanation stating that, “There is no duplication between the NPT “Protect and Restore NE Oregon” project and the GRMW in Northeast (NE) Oregon or the Snake River Salmon Recovery Board (SRSRB) in Southeast (SE) Washington. In 1992, the BPA and NPCC established the GRMW program as the locally-based coordinating entity for watershed restoration activities in Northeast Oregon. In 2002, the State of Washington established the SRSRB for the purpose of developing a locally supported, technically sound plan to recover salmon and to identify, score, and rank salmon habitat projects in Southeast Washington. The GRMW and SRSRB both receive BPA funding (FY2014 requests are $2,600,000 and $1,343,849) for habitat restoration projects, but neither implement projects on-the-ground. Rather, both organizations are “umbrella” programs that solicit for habitat restoration projects from other agencies/entities (e.g. NPT, Oregon Department Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR), Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), counties, etc.) and evaluate those projects through an established screening process that ultimately ends up funding the other agencies/entities for implementation. The coordinating organizations and on-the-ground implementers depend on each other, but they are not duplicative.”
As described in our proposal, during the 2007 NPCC Provincial Review solicitation, the NPT submitted four detailed habitat restoration projects for the Wallowa River, Lostine River, Joseph Creek and the Imnaha River in NE Oregon. Due to a constrained provincial budget, the NPT worked with the NPCC and other agencies and agreed on utilizing the GRMW project as the umbrella for BPA funded habitat restoration projects in NE Oregon. As a result, the NPT restructured the proposals into one and limited the budget to staffing, with the primary task of the project leader being to secure funding for implementation from the GRMW and other watershed funding entities. This approach was also employed with the ODFW and CTUIR projects in NE Oregon and currently, with the SRSRB and the WDFW, CTUIR, and Conservation Districts in SE Washington.
This umbrella approach is not the model that the NPT follows to successfully implement projects in other areas (Clearwater and Salmon Subbasins for example), nor is it one that the Tribe would prefer. In these other subbasins, the NPT works with other cooperators to identify, prioritize, plan and implement projects on an annual basis with implementation funding provided as part of the project. This allows for projects to be scheduled and phased appropriately ensuring that work is continually being completed and is consistent with the availability of resources and construction contractors.
In its current form, our NPT “Protect and Restore Northeast Oregon” project provides for staffing a project leader and one professional employee who collaborate with local partners in identifying high priority projects that address primary limiting factors in key salmon and steelhead spawning and rearing locations and seek design and implementation funding through external sources. We submit these projects to the GRMW for review and potential funding, as well as to other funding sources, such as Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board (OWEB), Pacific Southern Fund, and Oregon Wildlife Heritage Fund. In 2010, the NPT worked with the BPA and NPCC and expanded the projects geographic area to include the Tribe’s treaty territory in SE Washington - the Tucannon River, Asotin Creek, and other tributaries that drain into the Lower Snake River. As such, we similarly utilize the SRSRB solicitation process, and other funding entities, to secure implementation funding there.
The Protect and Restore Northeast Oregon/Southeast Washington project is proposing to implement habitat improvement projects that address Habitat Strategy 1, protect and improve tributary habitat based on biological needs and prioritized actions, identified in the Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS) 2008 Biological Opinion (BiOp). RPA 35 of the FCRPS 2008 BiOp calls for implementation of tributary habitat projects in 2010-2018 to achieve habitat quality improvements for steelhead and Chinook salmon in several drainages within northeast Oregon, including the Grande Ronde River, Imnaha River, Joseph Creek, Wallowa River, and the Tucannon River and Asotin Creek in Washington. Limiting factors for all watersheds were recently updated during the FCRPS BiOp Expert Panel process using NOAA’s newly developed standardized terminology. The expert panel included staff from the NPT DFRM Watershed Division, National Forests, Snake River Salmon Recovery Board, Grande Ronde Model Watershed, NOAA, ODFW, WDFW, and others using the best data and assessments available, along with the professional opinion when data was not available. The results of this exercise updated limiting factors for all watersheds, weighted them according to need and identified habitat projects to improve habitat conditions for listed species within each subbasin.
The Tribe proposes to address the primary factors limiting to abundance and productivity of the focal species. The Tribe and our partners in each subbasin have prioritized restoration projects to address these limiting factors based on the Subbasin Plans (NPCC 2005), watershed assessments, current data, and the Expert Panel process (2012). The Tribe will work with partners to secure additional funding to implement the highest priority actions.
Improvements called for in the 2008 FCRPS BiOp will be realized through the following objectives and deliverables:
Objectives of this proposal include:
OBJ-1: Reduce the number of fish passage barriers by restoring habitat connectivity
OBJ-2: Improve riparian habitat condition and function.
OBJ-3: Reduce the impact of the transportation system.
OBJ-4: Improve channel structure, form, and in-stream structural complexity.
Deliverables that will be accomplished through the implementation of habitat improvement projects that address limiting factors include:
1. Multi-agency Partnerships.
2. Identify and select habitat projects through working with local stakeholders to identify habitat projects in the Grande Ronde and Imnaha sub-basins in Northeast Oregon and the Tucannon and Asotin Creek watersheds in Southeast Washington.
3. Produce design and/or specifications for projects selected for implementation.
4. Manage and administer projects, seek additional funds for project implementation, and coordinate with partners from project inception through its completion.
5. Riparian Fence Construction and re-vegetation along Big Sheep Creek.
6. Diversion improvement projects in the Big Sheep Creek, Lostine River and Wallowa River drainages.
7. Improve Channel Structure and Form by incorporating natural channel design measures to improve, enhance, and restore stream ecosystems.
8. Improve aquatic organism passage by replacing barriers and creating a natural stream simulation structure that will pass all life stages of aquatic species.
9. Road decommissioning will reduce sediment impacts to watersheds by reducing road densities in at least the Joseph Creek and Tucannon River watersheds.
Monitoring of restoration efforts is a key component to determining the success of each project as well as feeding the adaptive management response loop to ensure the most successful techniques are being used during implementation. Implementation and compliance monitoring will occur on each project. Action effectiveness monitoring may be applied to projects through the “Action Effectiveness Monitoring of Tributary Habitat Improvement: a programmatic approach for the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program” (Roni et al. 2013). Status and trend monitoring, though the CHaMP protocol is a priority for implementation in the Imnaha River watershed.
An important goal of the Watershed Division is the timely reporting of science-based data. The Nez Perce Tribe Department of Fisheries Resource Management (DFRM) now has the equipment infrastructure necessary to ensure that this will be achieved. DFRM annual reports, metadata, and performance measure data will be available on the new DFRM website at http://www.nptfisheries.org and the Nez Perce Tribe Watershed Division’s geospatial, web-accessible database at http://imsland.nezperce.org/DFRMWatershed/nexviewer_flex.html. | Emmit Taylor, Jr. | | | 11/14/2013 | 12/31/2013 | Emmit Taylor, Jr. | Nez Perce Tribe | Habitat | None | 2013 Individual Review | 2013 Individual Review | BiOp |
Help
Mitigation work
Reporting
Funding
Search
Log in
Follow this via RSS feed. Help setting up RSS feeds?
Go to main Proposals page
