The Hangman Restoration Project was initially contracted in August of 2001.  Hangman Creek once supported a run of Chinook salmon and steelhead and a site near the current town of Tekoa, Washington was one of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe’s main fishing areas.  Recent management of the landscape had greatly degraded the wetland habitats and stream conditions till native salmonids are no longer found in the Hangman Mainstem.  The Hangman Restoration Project was initiated to restore native habitats by pursuing duel benefits through both Wildlife Mitigation and Resident Fish Substitution within the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Program.  The first years of the Project were focused toward identifying priority habitats and pursuing the purchase of parcels that offered the greatest potential to support native fish and wildlife habitats.  Properties were purchased in FY2005 that are credited to Albeni Falls construction and inundation losses.  Assessments of the properties were completed in FY 2006 and 2007.  A management plan for the properties, which the Tribe refers to collectively in the Coeur d'Alene language as hnt'k'wipn, was completed and approved in the spring of FY2008.  

Fiscal Year 2009, the year of this scope of work, will continue substantive habitat improvement activities on hnt'k'wipn.  The major thrust of these work elements and corresponding budgets are focused toward completing wetland restoration activities, native vegetation plantings and maintaining native vegetation communities.  Native fish and wildlife habitat improvements within hnt'k'wipn will be accomplished in a yearly stepwise fashion such that activities in any given year will follow the successes of previous years and prepare the landscape for activities to be accomplished in following years.  This strategy will minimize risks, build on successes, and spread the financial burden over a longer period.  For FY2009, habitat restoration activities will include: thinning the mature forest on the property to reflect pine open woodland conditions and allow increased diversity within the understory, planting native grasses in areas taken out of agricultural production, and creating wetland depressions in the Hangman and Sheep Creek flood plains and using the fill material to decommission drainage ditches that dewater the Hangman & Sheep Creek floodplains.  

The ultimate goal of the Hangman Restoration Project and the Hangman Fisheries Project (BPA Project #2001-032-00) is to prepare the Hangman Watershed for the return of the salmon and steelhead anadromous runs.  In order to accomplish this task, the focus of the Hangman Restoration Project must remain on the Hangman Watershed at large.  In this current scope of work, the Hangman Restoration Project plans to continue the attempts to partner with the NRCS and FSA to implement Continuous Conservation Reserve Programs (CCRP) on priority parcels in the Hangman Watershed.  In FY2008 efforts to partner with the NRCS and FSA failed due to 1) a lack of interest by landowners at large and 2) the rules for eligibility disqualified properties where landowners were willing to enroll.  A new Farm Bill was passed in the spring of 2008, however, and while the specifics of that Bill have not been widely published, the Hangman Restoration Project intends to investigate every opportunity to implement restoration and conservation practices through partnering with CCRP.  Allotted and Tribal lands within the Hangman Watershed may be well situated for enrolled in CCRP if criteria within the new Farm Bill can be met.    

The completion of a recent Environmental Protection Agency funded project identified downstream characteristics as holding the highest hydrologic priority for wetland and stream flow restoration and enhancement.  In order to return base flows to the Hangman Watershed, therefore, the Hangman Restoration Project must increasingly concentrate on returning proper hydrologic function to downstream riparian and wetland habitats.