The goal of this project is to facilitate both the estuary/ocean subgroup (EOS) and the Expert Regional Technical Group (ERTG) for estuary habitat restoration, as organized under the federal Columbia Estuary Ecosystem Restoration Program (CEERP1). This project will aid the action agencies in estuary-related aspects of implementation of the 2008 Biological Opinion (BiOp) on operation of the Federal Columbia River Power System (National Marine Fisheries Service 20082). The project will also provide technical support for BPA’s tributary RME program and analysis of hydrosystem operations to protect listed salmon and steelhead.

Comprehensive research, monitoring, and evaluation (RME) and estuary habitat restoration by the Action Agencies (Bonneville Power Administration [BPA] and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers [Corps]), as stipulated in the 2008 BiOp, are ongoing in earnest in the lower Columbia River and estuary (LCRE). Specifically, the BiOp’s Reasonable and Prudent Alternative (RPA) action 37 called for the Action Agencies to convene the ERTG to use “…habitat metrics to determine the estimated change in survival…” resulting from off-site mitigation actions in the lower river and estuary. RPA actions 58-61 deal directly with estuary RME. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has been contracted annually by BPA to facilitate the EOS since 2002 and the ERTG since 2009.

Implementation of restoration projects in the CEERP restoration program has been underway for just a decade. Uncertainties regarding the effectiveness of certain restoration techniques, which have been adopted from other Pacific Northwest ecosystems, have emerged. These uncertainties can adversely affect timelines of individual restoration project engineering designs, and result in inadequate information for cost-benefit analysis. There is a need for program-scale information developed from multiple sources and ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest and disseminated to support restoration planners. These types of uncertainties have not typically been monitored as part of the CEERP action effectiveness monitoring and research.
As part of BPA’s adaptive management process, the overall RME effort supports implementation of the Fish and Wildlife Program and relevant elements of the FCRPS BiOp. BPA is continually trying to improve the usefulness and cost-effectiveness of its RME work. To this end, short- and long-term strategies for RME are being developed. Fulfillment of these strategies will benefit from technical review and support during their development and implementation.