The Scope of Work and budget presented in this document represent the activities associated with the Coeur 'd Alene Tribe's resident fish enhancement project on Hangman Creek within the Spokane Sub-basin.
Ongoing objectives include: 1) Determine areas that are in need of restoration to improve spawning and rearing habitats for redband and other naturally reproducing trout. 2) Support an educational outreach program to facilitate a holistic watershed protection process. 3)  Implement a landscape, floodplain and in-stream restoration strategy that will support self-sustaining, naturally reproducing, and harvestable populations of native trout. 4) Implement a monitoring and evaluation program to describe status and trends for habitat and the redband trout population and the impact of management actions.

The Hangman Watershed has experienced land use changes that have resulted in degraded in-stream habitat for fish and other aquatic species. Restoring and conserving habitats in the upper tributaries is a priority along with increasing fish distribution and reconnecting fragmented populations. Four fish-bearing tributaries within the Coeur d’Alene Reservation - Mission, Sheep, Nehchen, and Indian creeks - were prioritized to conserve and enhance the existing population of redband trout (Herrera 2011 and Hardin-Davis 2005). Based on watershed assessments and systematic habitat evaluations, restoration prescriptions and methods have been identified for both mainstem and tributary habitats. A primary method of accomplishing habitat enhancement is to enlist beaver in a holistic strategy to address multiple ecological and hydrologic process deficiencies. Beaver influence channel and floodplain morphology and vegetation, however, in the Hangman Watershed, floodplain habitat degradation has resulted in habitats that are not favorable to beaver. The lack of the floodplain deciduous forest component has reduced the beaver population and thus the beaver’s influence on hydrology. Conversely, the inability of beaver to influence the shallow groundwater table has reduced the availability of floodplain deciduous forest coverage. In addition to the absence of foods for the beaver during the difficult winter seasons, the absence of large wood to serve as foundations for dams has reduced the beaver’s ability to influence the shallow groundwater in the floodplains of the Hangman Watershed. This Scope of Work follows previous scopes of work in reconnecting streams to the valley  bottom floodplains and re-establishing floodplain deciduous forests to support beaver populations which will provide the long term stability the systems needs to support robust salmonid populations.

The technical report, "Recommendations for Beaver Habitat Restoration in the Upper Hangman Watershed" (Herrera 2011; Report is uploaded under Project Documents) identified stream reaches between Indian Creek and Mission Creek as the most feasible to use beaver as a partner in restoration. The restoration of this reach of Hangman Creek will reconnect the redband populations within all four of the streams originally identified as of primary importance. More recently, it was realized that Smith Creek holds a small, isolated population of redband in its head waters and thus this stream has become more important in the larger restoration scheme. The reach upstream of Smith Creek to the Sanders Road was identified as needing only riparian enhancement to aid beaver in aggrading the channel. Reaches immediately below Smith Creek were prescribed as needing aggressive restoration measures to reconnect Hangman to its floodplain. This Scope of Work focuses heavily on the reaches of Hangman Creek downstream of Smith Creek as part of the ongoing k'wne' 'ulchiyark'wmtsut (translated as "To make it crooked again") restoration process and represents the last major, heavy handed restoration for this 4-mile length of Hangman Creek from the Sanders Road to Nehchen Butte. This aggressive k'wne' 'ulchiyark'wmtsut restoration process was initiated in 2013 and represents a substantive effort to reestablish redband in the Hangman Mainstem.

Priorities for tributary restoration were also analyzed, and it was determined that Indian Creek was not suitable for a beaver aided restoration approach due to its narrow floodplain width, higher gradient, and lack of hardwoods. An IFIM study (Hardin-Davis 2005) examined flow, habitat and water quality relationships for providing suitable redband trout habitat and concluded that tributary restoration could be accomplished primarily by adding large woody debris to improve pool quality and quantity.  Among all the fish-bearing tributaries, Indian Creek has been identified as a primary stronghold of redband trout in the upper Hangman Creek watershed within Tribal boundaries, and the highest priority among the tributaries to maintain habitat conditions to support dispersal of redband trout to other parts of the watershed.

This two-pronged strategy to protect and enhance existing redband habitat in the tributaries and restoring severely degraded habitats in mainstem reaches to connect those fish bearing tributaries are equally weighted in the overall strategy. This Scope of Work includes improvements in in-stream habitats within Indian Creek while completing efforts to reconnect Hangman to its floodplain within k'wne' 'ulchiyark' wmtsut, which lies upstream of Nehchen Butte. Evaluations of the restoration processes employed within k'wne' 'ulchiyark' wmtsut well be completed to further refine restoration processes that produce the greatest results in Hangman. The successes and failures within k'wne' 'ulchiyark' wmtsut will guide actions as restoration moves methodically downstream.