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 for cost share on culvert removal projects in the Priest Lake Watershed. This is a cooperative project with the US Forest Service and USFWS  to remove a  culvert on Quartz Creek.

We propose to develop decision support models to understand interactions among local and climate-related threats to threatened Bull Trout within core areas. This effort would tier directly to efforts prescribed by the recent Draft Bull Trout Recovery Plan and Recovery Unit Implementation Plan and the Rangewide Bull Trout Vulnerability Assessment.  Our approach will directly engage local stakeholders in assembling the best available science in a structured decision-making framework to provide a robust assessment of management alternatives to addressing existing and long-term threats to Bull Trout.  


Temperature Mitigation:
USGS will identify and predict the spatial and temporal extent of cold-water refuges by using a variety of mapping sources, modeling and remote sensing tools, and direct measurement techniques.  Emphasis will be placed on using publicly available map and remote sensing data sources and geographic information system (GIS) – based modeling tools.  

The Kalispel Tribe will hire Portland State University (PSU) to evaluate potential strategies to enhance cold-water refugia along the Pend Oreille River within the Box Canyon Pool.  The feasibility study portion of the project will be organized into two tasks comprised of different evaluations to:
1. Update the existing CE-QUAL-W2 model of the Pend Oreille River with added capabilities to evaluate potential structural enhancements at the confluence of cool tributaries (2 sites initially) and;
2. In collaboration with USGS, evaluate other possible opportunities to enhance cold-water refugia throughout the Box Canyon Pool utilizing remote sensing, expanded monitoring, and hydrogeological evaluations.

Twenty Bull trout will be acquired from IDFG lake trout netting program and implanted with transmitters and tracked to determine movements and potential locations of coldwater refugia.