Overview: The Little Tucannon PALS (2016), PA 24 (2016) and PA 26 (2011) maintenance/LWD enhancement projects have been reviewed and assessed by Columbia Conservation District (CCD) staff, Snake River Salmon Recovery Board (SRSRB), Tucannon Programmatic staff and Eco Logical Research staff to make the determination that applying adaptive management alternatives are beneficial to enhancing salmonid habitat conditions following 2017 high flow impacts to previous implemented projects.

Touchet River Conceptual Restoration Plan, CCD staff working in conjunction with SRSRB staff and Regional Technical Team (RTT) have secured a Washington Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SRFB) grant to initiate and complete this restoration planning process.  This planning process will incorporate the technical principles and general foot print utilized during the Tucannon River Conceptual Restoration Plan processes completed by Anchor QEA (November 2011) as described in “Background” below.      

2017 seasonal high flow conditions resulted in mixed impacts to Little Tucannon PALS, PA 24 and PA 26 project area.  Some Little Tucannon PALS structures were washed out of original placement site, but provided additional habitat benefits downstream as materials collected on other constructed or pre-existing structures or developed new habitat sites.  These impacts were identified from a 2017 site visits which also developed an adaptive management alternative to implement maintenance activities and expand on the original effort by installing additional LWD within the project reaches.  PA 24 maintenance adaptive management actions were partially addressed in 2017 work window due to funding limitations, additional actions were identified and planned for implementation in 2018.  PA 26 adaptive management actions were identified in 2017 and planned for implementation in 2018.

Status (FY18): The work emphasis expected in this period includes: (1) permitting and environmental compliance activities are ongoing; additional requirements will continue into the start of the contract term (Apr), and will be completed by July 2018; (2) the design engineering may be refined (as needed) to reflect any year-to-year changes to channel morphology or site conditions, and adjust to any variations to compliance requirements and will continue into the start of the contract term (Apr.); (3) planned implementation will be preceded with securing materials, establishing a contract with Washington DOE, for Conservation Corps crew to install PALS under CCD staff oversight and project installation; (4) secure consultant for contract services, Touchet River Conceptual Restoration Plan; (5) progress on pre-construction activities, storage of construction and planning materials and securing construction contractor commitments, to be near construction-ready by the in-water work period (late June 2018); (6) planned implementation of 4 construction projects and 1 planning process.
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Background: Project goal is to implement habitat protection, enhancement and recovery strategies to restore habitat function and channel processes throughout the basin to improve species key life cycle survival and productivity.  Project focus is to assist implementation of the 45 projects prioritized into three implementation tiers throughout the 50 river miles in the completed geomorphic assessment areas.  The 45 projects are broken into three tiers of implementation priority (Tier-1 being the highest): includes 12 (Tier-1), 14 (Tier-2) and 19 (Tier-3) projects.  Individual Project Areas are designed at a sub-reach and/or reach scale.  The accumulated sub-reach and reach scale restoration actions will significantly improve natural processes and habitat conditions as well as the process utilized for identifying and prioritizing project selection and implementation.  Effectively changing river processes and habitat function requires reach-scale actions which is a goal of this project.  Conventionally, small scale or site specific actions have been the norm because of lack of reach scale geomorphic assessments and long-term funding commitments.  Long-term sufficient funding level commitment will lead to restoring channel processes and habitat function at and across the reach scale, improving species survival and productivity in the Tucannon River.

The technical basis for individual project areas was to first complete Phase I, Tucannon River Geomorphic Assessment and Habitat Restoration Study, (Anchor QEA April 2011) which includes; basin description, geomorphic conditions, fish habitat and distribution, hydrologic analysis, sediment transport and mobility analysis, sediment budget analysis and reach characteristics and delineation of 10 discrete river reaches.  This work strengthened the technical understanding of previously identified limiting factors, existing physical conditions and geomorphic processes in the basin in order to identify and prioritize habitat restoration areas.  Included in Anchor's assessment was Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data and true color Orthophotography of the Tucannon River floodplain, (Watershed Sciences, 2010).  

Phase II completed conceptual restoration plans for river reaches 6-10 and reach 2 and then ranked and prioritized them based on a restoration framework loosely following the recommendation of Roni et al. (2002).  The criteria used for this framework was focused on Spring Chinook in support, coordination and cooperation with the Snake River Salmon Recovery Board (SRSRB) in their development of the Tucannon River Programmatic Habitat Project.  It was reasonably assumed habitat improvements for spring Chinook will also greatly benefit steelhead.  This phase was completed in November 2011 (Anchor QEA, November 2011).  This phase also included 30% designs for Project Area (PA) 2 (Anchor QEA November 2011b) and PA-14 (Anchor December 2011).  

Phase III included the conceptual restoration plans for reach 3 and 4 (Anchor QEA October 2012) and the development of the Integrated Species Restoration Prioritization, Tucannon River document (Anchor QEA November 2012) covering the Tucannon River from river mile 0.7 to 50.3 as well as including all ESA listed species and life cycles.  The conceptual restoration plan for reach 5 was completed for the Snake River Salmon Recovery Board (Anchor QEA October 2012) and included in the final work-product.

Initiate and complete Touchet River Conceptual Restoration Plan.  Incorporate the technical guiding principles from the Tucannon River Conceptual Restoration Plan while considering new planning concepts.  The success of the Tucannon River Plan, peer review, technical acceptance, landowner approval and multiple project implementers and funding entities acceptance support carrying this process forward to the Touchet River subbasin.
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Summary: The individual reach-scale projects (Project Areas-PA) covered in this proposal have been identified and prioritized by the geomorphic and conceptual restoration plans and reviewed by the SRSRB Regional Technical Team (RTT), Tucannon Coordinating Committee (TCC) and Tucannon Implementers Workgroup (TIW) and placed on the SRSRB 3-year habitat work schedule.  Project areas are assessed under the following elements; channel characterization, floodplain characterization, conceptual project actions, geomorphic implications, biological benefits and potential challenges.  Projects are then evaluated and placed in implementation tiers based on four criteria: expected biological response, consistency with natural processes, benefit-to-cost, and reach priority (Anchor November 2012, pages 29-44). The selection criteria that prioritizes the projects will address the limiting factors outlined for the Tucannon River in the Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion.

The Columbia Conservation District (CCD) will implement actions under the Tucannon Stream and Riparian Protection, Enhancement and Restoration Project to address and improve riparian area recovery/maintenance, floodplain connectivity and function, and instream habitat quantity and diversity, the primary aquatic habitat limiting attributes identified thru EDT analysis and the Geomorphic Assessment and Habitat Restoration Study covering the Tucannon Subbasin. The District will focus implementation on Tier 1 and Tier 2 projects (26) with the core of projects (18) falling in river reaches 6-10, a critical fish (steelhead and spring Chinook) utilization overlap core area, while targeting private lands; approximately 75% of the assessed basin is in private landownership.  CCD will present project proposals to affected landowners and assess interest and willingness to participate; as priority projects planned for implementation progress through design stages, they will be reviewed by the RTT, TCC and TIW, incorporating technical input.  Depending on landowner commitment and technical merit, we will also actively pursue (8) Tier-1 and Tier-2 projects for implementation in river reaches 2-5; private landowner willingness and the District's ability to leverage BPA funding are critical drivers in successful implementation of theses additional projects.  

Project has been expanded, as recommended by the resource managers, to become Columbia County Stream and Riparian Restoration Program.  Project will provide cost-share for the Touchet River Conceptual Habitat Restoration Plan based on the Tucannon model.

Objectives: Riparian recovery/maintenance, flood plain connectivity and instream habitats are critical management objectives addressing the broadest diversity of limiting attributes in identified priority restoration and protection geographic areas will be addressed.  Biological objectives of diversity, reduced embeddedness, LWD recruitment, primary pools, high flow refugia, riparian recovery and temperature will be addressed with this strategy and benefit ESA-listed and cultural significant focal species, spring and fall Chinook, steelhead and bull trout during their respective key life stages throughout the watershed.  Accumulated restoration/protection geographic areas, Pataha/Marengo thru Mountain Tucannon matches NOAA's  Major Spawning Aggregation designation, (MSA), Pataha/Marengo to Tucannon Mouth and Lower Pataha match NOAA'a Minor Spawning Aggregation designations (mSA).  

Implement habitat protection, enhancement and recovery strategies to support FCRPS BiOp habitat goals, the Snake River Salmon Recovery Plan, the Tucannon Subbasin Plan and the Walla Walla Subbasin Plan -- including support for identified ESA-listed and culturally significant or focal, species of interest in the Tucannon/Walla Walla Subbasins. Instream habitat quantity and diversity project focus is within priority protection/restoration geographic areas which cover the entire watershed due to species and species specific life cycle needs.  Projects, implementing identified strategies, address various biological objectives; sediment reduction, primary pools, floodplain connectivity and LWD recruitment/placement.  Project implementation will provide habitat benefits to spring/fall Chinook, steelhead and bull trout during their respective varied life stage needs throughout the watershed.
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Management Considerations: Full project implementation (45) to achieve the habitat restoration objectives identified in the various assessment documents remains an ambitious challenge. Prior to the establishment of the Tucannon River Programmatic Habitat Project [#2010-077-00] coordinated by the SRSRB, habitat restoration was primarily restricted to actions directed through the Tucannon Stream and Riparian Restoration program (CCD) - with a limited and leveraged funding base.  The now well-coordinated, cooperative implementation of prioritized habitat improvement projects among the CCD, WDFW, SRSRB, CTUIR (Fish Accord) and Nez Perce Tribe will accelerate priority restoration actions addressed to identified limiting factors throughout the subbasin.  Considering the number of projects identified, still limited annual funding (although greatly improved among the programs), an abbreviated seasonal work-window, potential project phasing due to complexity and scale/scope, landowner willingness to participate, and the available capacity to implement multiple projects per year, effective planning and implementation progression require close cooperation. Develop the Touchet River Restoration Conceptual Plan.

In the interim, to track progress using project effectiveness monitoring, BPA is funding CHaMP monitoring at 15 annual sites and 30 rotating panel sites across the basin.  In addition to the randomly selected (GRITS) CHaMP sites independently funded by BPA, the Snake River Salmon Recovery Board had identified four "prescribed" sites to sample thru CHaMP protocol and they are now included.  These four sites are at specific project sites so that project specific effectiveness can be tracked as part of the watershed scale status and trends data collected by the GRITS based design.  Both of these monitoring efforts are being conducted by independent contractors.  This coordinated M&E effort was put in place to reduce duplication of effort, cost and develop consistency in the methodology and protocols on a sub-regional scale.  Regional review of monitoring data will inform management direction adaptively, as to potential shift in implementation actions to address priority habitat limiting factor response.  CCD anticipates projects implemented within this project will fall under the BPA umbrella CHaMP monitoring with oversight coordination provided by the SRSRB. In the past,  BPA is in the process of evaluating program wide monitoring efforts and changes are anticipated.  Rather than design or promote a new/different monitoring process CCD will wait until BPA and SRSRB identify a future monitoring process so as to maintain consistency across the region.