PROJECT PURPOSE:  
The primary purpose of this project is to provide analytical tools to facilitate technical and policy discussions leading to implementation of subbasin plans and the development of provincial objectives and recovery plans.  The tools will provide a transparent, consistent structure for analyzing the benefits of proposed actions at multiple levels of resolution.  Phasing of the technical exercise will allow the Council to determine whether or not to expand the project more broadly at a later date.

PROJECT DELIVERABLES:  
1) A comprehensive, web-based data system that will coordinate and utilize information from existing databases and enable users to generate a variety of reports useful for implementation and policy needs; 2) a series of training sessions and "proof-of-concept" technical workshops aiming to educate individuals on use of analytical tools and improve the data and information used in the process; 3) hatchery and subbasin integration results for at least five subbasins.

SIGNIFICANCE:  
The development of specific biological objectives at the province level is called for in the 2000 Fish and Wildlife Program.  The project will help provide a consistent approach for organizing subbasin and hatchery information and provide means to aggregate or "roll-up" anadromous populations to the provincial level.  Products from a technical exercise could form the basis for an amendment process to establish provincial objectives in the Council's Program. Many subbasin plans need greater alignment of hatchery production with subbasin habitat conditions and future habitat rehabilitation efforts.  The project initiates a technical process that will improve the link between salmon and steelhead hatchery programs with subbasin plans.  Improvement in the linkage between hatchery programs and subbasin habitat conditions is important to hatchery reform activities and subbasin planning efforts. The project will produce a comprehensive data system that will coordinate and utilize information from existing databases and enable users to generate a variety of reports useful for implementation of subbasin plan strategies and recovery planning.  The project will create useful decision support tools that may be used for future policy discussions. Quantified objectives, once established, will assist the development of a more effective monitoring and evaluation program.  Biological objectives and population benchmarks will assist in determining how well fish and wildlife efforts are progressing. The project will help integrate fish production across the "4-H's." Along with better placing production objectives in the context of subbasin plans, the process will take into account harvest objectives and hydrosystem effects on fish production. The project will support regional processes such as state and federal recovery planning, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process for Columbia Basin hatcheries (Mitchell Act hatcheries), and other regional production and harvest planning efforts.

BACKGROUND:  
Objectives at the province scale will help to measure progress towards meeting elements of the overall vision and the basin-scale objectives established in the 2000 Fish and Wildlife Program.  Clear targets at the provincial level should improve accountability, inform decisions about resource allocation, and provide the basis for a more organized and efficient monitoring and evaluation program.  To be effective, provincial objectives must be measurable statements of population performance and take into account effects of the environment or management activities encountered throughout the lifecycle of the target species.  Biological objectives at the provincial level were not articulated in the Council's 2000 Fish and Wildlife Program.  

Upon completion of subbasin planning, the Council expects to amend into the program appropriate visions, objectives, and strategies for the provinces. Biological objectives at the province scale guide development of the program at the subbasin scale. It is likely that there will be some iteration among biological objectives at the various scales as information is developed. However, the Council intends to develop a provisional set of objectives at the province scale to provide planning guidelines for subbasin planning. These may be revisited in the future to reflect the experience gained in planning at the subbasin level. Biological objectives at the province level will be used to 1) "size" the program and describe the amount of change needed across the province; 2) help determine cost effectiveness of program measures; and 3) provide the basis for program accountability and the monitoring, evaluation and research associated with this program. The biological objectives at the province level are not intended to be prescriptive or regulatory in nature. Instead, they provide guidance for planning at the subbasin level (p.35, Council Document 2000-19).

The need for clear biological objectives at the provincial and basinwide levels is generally accepted.  In response to a Council issue paper on subbasin plans, the Council received consistent comment about the need to aggregate the subbasin plan objectives at a provincial and basinwide level, and review or adopt population and habitat objectives at those higher program levels.  Similarly, many comments saw a need, using the subbasin plans and any higher level "roll-up," to define more precisely the priorities of the program, to guide the allocation of Bonneville funding, and to define more clearly the next project selection process.
Unfortunately, because biological objectives in many subbasin plans were defined differently, aggregation of objectives to higher levels is difficult.  In order to effectively aggregate objectives to the provincial level a "common currency" across subbasins is needed.  Subbasin plans need similar performance indicators derived in a consistent manner across subbasins.  
Hatchery production was not as well integrated into most subbasin plans, as the Council would have liked.  Although the plans did a good job of assessing habitat conditions, most plans fell short in describing how hatcheries would work with habitat strategies to meet subbasin goals.  The Council recognized this issue during the subbasin plans adoption process.  It was decided that hatchery integration improvements would be made to subbasin plans in the future.

ANALYSIS:  
Council staff recommends that to address the needs outlined above, the Council initiate a technical exercise that would help clarify habitat and population objectives at the subbasin, provincial and basin-wide levels.  This effort would integrate habitat, artificial production, harvest, hydro and other effects and derive how far current and proposed activities can take us toward meeting regional objectives.  The exercise would rely strongly on information found in subbasin plans and other sources as the basis for current and future results.  The products of this technical effort could then inform a number of planning exercises including a possible Council Program amendment process.

The primary products of the technical exercise will be numerical estimates of how many and what type of salmon and steelhead adults will escape to the spawning grounds, be harvested and return to hatcheries.  Current and long-term adult estimates will be made for each stock of fish in all Columbia River anadromous subbasins.  Current estimates will be made using existing habitat conditions, hatchery activities, harvest rates and mainstem survival estimates.  Long-term adult estimates will be made after assuming future habitat improvements described in subbasin plans and hatchery reform improvements have been completed.  Once these numeric subbasin adult estimates are completed, they can then be aggregated to provincial, ESU or basin-wide levels.  The products from this effort will likely inform future iterations of subbasin plans.
NOAA Fisheries, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife support the effort because they see benefits to ESA recovery planning and the Columbia Basin hatchery NEPA process.  We anticipate that this comprehensive project will ultimately include all Columbia River subbasins below the blocked areas and encompass approximately 260 hatchery and natural stocks of anadromous fish (Table 3 Tab in This Excel Book).

This project proposes an initial step of a possible larger technical exercise that attempts to better integrate hatcheries with subbasin plans while considering out of subbasin impacts