Project Location:  
Upper Grande Ronde Watershed

Project Objectives:  
Provide technical engineering and hydrologic services to plan, design, and implement habitat restoration projects in the Union County portion of the Grande Ronde Basin using the Best Management Practices (BMPs) found in both the Grande Ronde Model Watershed Action Plan (1994) and the SB1010 Agriculture Water Quality Area Management Plan (1999).

Introduction - This proposal requests partial funding for technical engineering support services in the Union County portion of the Grande Ronde Basin to plan, survey, design and implement watershed health projects.  

Existing condition - A partnership already exists between the Union and Wallowa Conservation Districts, the GRMW, and BOR for engineering assistance in the basin.  This partnership has been in place since 1999.  Since that time, the Union SWCD has basically used BOR engineers only for large scale projects involving more than one landowner; which represents only a small portion of the overall engineering needs of the Union SWCD.  Additionally, the Bur. Of Reclamation is limited to working on projects that are connected in some way to streams or wetlands.  Approximately 80% of our engineering workload is focused around either smaller scale projects such as spring developments, irrigation measuring devices and headgates, small ponds, etc. or projects that take place in uplands.

Union SWCD has had grants for outside (the partnership) engineering assistance in the past from both OWEB and BPA.  We have used our available OWEB dollars and for the last few months have been paying for engineering assistance through a BPA grant agreement with Wallowa SWCD.  The grant agreement with Wallowa SWCD is five years old and in an effort to clean up and streamline record keeping, that grant will not be extended.  We have several projects (listed below) that are in various stages of technical development.  To continue to provide technical services to the projects we already have as well as any new projects that come up, we are hoping to obtain funds from BPA for engineering support.

Benefits -
· Improved habitat for endangered Snake River summer steelhead and spring Chinook salmon, bull trout, and other riparian dependent species.
· Incremental water quality improvements in the Grande Ronde River and Wallowa systems which have numerous DEQ listed, water quality limited stream reaches
· Timely development of restoration projects which are technically sound
· Preparation of project proposals which are complete and provide good cost estimates.
· Cost-efficient engineering support.

Project Maintenance -Not applicable to this grant proposal

Permits -None required

Monitoring Plan -Union Soil and Water District will provide quarterly reports to BPA and the Grande Ronde Model Watershed.  The report will consist of a spreadsheet detailing how many dollars were spent for the quarter, for what projects, and what types of projects (practices) the monies were spent on.  Under the direction of the GRMW, Union SWCD will provide a completion report which will include any additional information deemed vital to the report.

Work Dates -December 1, 2004 to September 30, 2005