Project #2003-017-00 (Project) seeks to develop two novel monitoring and evaluation programs: (i) subbasin-scale pilot status and trend monitoring efforts for anadromous salmonids and their habitat in the Wenatchee, John Day and South Fork Salmon River subbasins, and (ii) effectiveness monitoring for suites of habitat restoration projects in selected watersheds within the three target subbasins.  This work – critical for implementing the 2000 NMFS FCRPS Biological Opinion (RPA Actions 180, 181, and 183) (BiOp) – builds on current status and trend monitoring programs within each of these subbasins.  Several regional and local organizations are funding and implementing these programs.  In short, this project will integrate existing and new monitoring and evaluation activities in three pilot subbasins to help ensure that provisions of the BiOp are satisfied.

This contract is one of several contracts that will implement this project.  The FINAL REPORT for this contract will contain data that will 1) be submitted to NOAA FISHERIES (also a contractor under this project) for use in a  project level integrated Annual Report and 2) be submitted to BPA as a contract final report according to the terms of this contract.

There are two main purposes for this contract: (A) to augment information collected under the completed Headwaters study and (B) to continue water quality monitoring in the Entiat.  This Scope of Work (SOW) will enable the Bonneville Power Administration (Bonneville) to implement the Project in the Wenatchee and Entiat Subbasins with the objectives of:
(A1) Developing and testing methods for monitoring headwater stream conditions at the subcatchment and stream levels;
(A2) Determining the effects of land-use (timber harvest and roading) and vegetation cover (which is under geoclimatic control) on the biological productivity of subcatchments;
(A3) Using this information to relate watershed condition of fishless subcatchments to fish communities in downstream habitats, and
(B1) Measuring, analyzing and interpreting temporal trends in natural stream water quality in the Entiat River subbasin using state-of-the-art electronic sensors for continuous unattended monitoring.  

Overview  
Headwaters Study
This contract is to augment work begun under a contractual agreement between the Wenatchee Aquatic and Land Interactions (WALI) Team, working cooperatively with scientists from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks (contract #93778), and the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) .  BPA initiated the research program "Integrated Status and Effectiveness Monitoring" in 2003 to assess the health of aquatic resources and fisheries in the Wenatchee sub-basin of the Upper Columbia River Watershed.  The headwaters study focused on food web productivity (i.e., the amount of aquatic arthropod biomass and organic detritus produced and exported to fish habitats) as an integrator of the processes and environmental constraints driving these ecosystems.  It will also determine whether food web productivity is a key determinant of the population ecology, foraging behavior and sustainability of downstream fish assemblages which include sensitive anadromous species and resident species. Productivity derived from headwater streams could be a critical component of ecosystem health in the Wenatchee sub-basin.  

Analyses to date indicate some broad differences in the production of aquatic macroinvertebrates and in fish abundance across categories that combine the effects of climate and management intensity within the subbasin.  From a monitoring standpoint, production of benthic macroinvertebrates was not a good predictor of drifting macroinvertebrates and therefore might be a poor predictor of food resources available to fish.  Indeed, there is occasionally a correlation between drifting macroinvertebrate abundance and fish abundance which suggests that headwater-derived resources are important.  However, fish in the headwaters appear to be strongly food-limited and there was no evidence that fishless headwaters provided any kind of subsidy to fish in reaches downstream.  Additional information from some of the main tributaries even further down the watershed in the main tributaries to the Wenatchee subbasin (Icicle R., Nason Cr., Little Wenatchee R., etc.), along with other information collected during the course of these studies, will allow us to calculate the carrying capacity for fish in headwater reaches just downstream of fishless reaches using theoretical approaches derived from population ecology.  Responses in foraging behavior and individual growth, under density-dependent population regulation, can be used to estimate the carrying capacity.   In other research conducted at PNW we studied foraging behavior and individual growth in some of the main tributaries connected to the headwater study systems examined under the ISEMP program.  Additional fish population data from the headwaters and in the remaining main tributaries would benefit the analysis of the relationship between upstream and downstream processes by adding statistical power.  

We will determine whether resource availability, carrying capacity and other density-dependent population processes in headwaters correspond to the same ecological responses observed further down the watershed and thus whether productivity in the subbasin may be most strongly influenced by regional ecological processes or by local processes.  This information will be valuable to the management of the watershed because it is important to be able to predict whether any management activity in one part of the watershed is likely to have an impact in another part.

Dr. Karl Polivka is a Co-Principal Investigator on the project and is leading the fish ecology portions of the study, which includes: (1) Studies of benthic invertebrates productivity in fish-bearing habitat since the macroinvertebrate community downstream of headwater junctions may show the effects of input from the headwaters, and  (2) An assessment of baseline productivity that informs other aspects of the study such as fish responses (including diet) resulting from prey delivery from the headwater tributaries.  The relative contribution of invertebrate-based food webs found in the headwater streams and that of the fish-bearing streams will be linked to the condition of relevant fish populations using direct measures of fish diet, condition and behavior to establish how strongly connected the energetic inputs of headwater streams are to the persistence of resident and anadromous species.

Entiat Water Quality Study
Dr. Richard Woodsmith , the Team Leader/Research Hydrologist with the Aquatic and Land Interactions Program at the PNW Research Station, USDA Forest Service, is leading the work measuring, analyzing and interpreting temporal trends in natural stream water pH in the Entiat River subbasin as well as other basic water quality parameters (temperature, dissolved oxygen, and conductivity) using state of the art electronic sensors for continuous unattended monitoring.  

The ISEMP program monitors the status and trend of water quality elements that may affect restoration project effectiveness in the Entiat subbasin.  Past exceedences in pH suggest that this water quality parameter may have a confounding effect on understanding trends in salmon and steelhead production.  The primary objective of this project is to better understand the spatial and temporal trends in stream water pH, dissolved oxygen, specific conductance and temperature in the Entiat River subbasin.  This study will employ the use of cost-effective multiparameter data logging instruments which will allow us to monitor the primary water quality parameters of interest to salmon recovery in the Entiat River subbasin.  Data collection will conform to USEPA data quality standards.   Probe deployment will follows the USGS, NAWQA approach in that a few points that integrate critical drainage areas will be sampled intensively.