This project supports implementing larger-scale projects to improve local watershed health and ecosystem conditions and function within the Pend Oreille subbasin, consistent with the NPCC Sub-Basin Plan. The Kalispel Tribe has a history of matching & leveraging  funds from various sources (e.g. SRFB, DOE, DOT, BIA, USFS) to implement large scale watershed projects.  Land management and watershed restoration will be based upon the jointly-developed objectives and expected performance outcomes. There is an opportunity to begin implementation of this project in 2012 with a cost share on Cee Cee Ah Culvert with the US Forest Service.  A total of 3 culverts that are blockages to fish passage will be replaced.  Two of these culverts are in areas where brook trout were removed through another BPA funded project (Non-Native Fish Suppression Project). The design for these culvert replacements were funded through the Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SRFB).  

This project includes plans to design and implement a feasibility study for a westslope cutthroat and/or bull trout conservation aquaculture facility. The Tribe will obtain BPA concurrence about purpose and need, and project objectives to be served through conservation aquaculture – including agreement about appropriate cost-share (relative to the magnitude of the impacts attributable to the FCRPS and Albeni Falls Dam in particular) – before beginning the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Major Projects Review (3-STEP) process in about years 5 through 7.
  
• Target Habitats: Pend Oreille River and its tributaries both upstream and downstream of Albeni Falls Dam.

• Projected Benefits: Land acquisitions and conservations easements in core bull trout and westslope cutthroat watersheds.  Large scale tributary fish passage projects.  Improved ecosystem function through re-establishment of ecological conditions that foster abundance, diversity, and productivity of affected species.  A better understanding of westslope cutthroat and bull trout rebuilding needs and objectives; greater definition of the purposes to be served through conservation aquaculture; and the possible construction of a production facility commencing after the ten-year term of this agreement.  

• References: Intermountain Subbasin Plan (Pend Oreille Subbasin), Draft Bull Trout Recovery Plan (Chapter 23)