Contract for 2023 Operations & Management of the Pine Creek Conservation Area by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs:

The Conservation Area includes the Pine Creek Ranch and Wagner Ranch Acquisitions, and is managed by the Tribes in accordance with the Pine Creek Conservation Area Wildlife Habitat and Watershed Management Plan. This plan serves as the site-specific management plan called for in the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the Tribes and BPA. The MOA is the primary legal document guiding the Tribes' management of the property. This plan is supplemental to the MOA, and provides further definition to the Tribes commitment to manage the property for fish and wildlife habitat.

Pine Creek Conservation Area is intended, as a wildlife and watershed mitigation site, to partially offset wildlife habitat losses caused by John Day Dam on the Columbia River. Habitat management will, as specified in the MOA between BPA and the Tribes, to the extent possible, focus on strategies designed to achieve and maintain native habitat that is naturally self-sustaining.

In many cases, recovery of watershed functions or native plant communities may only occur over the course of several decades. Other changes, such as community dominance by invasive species, may be permanent without active intervention on the part of land managers. Future climate changes may also limit or prevent recovery to historic conditions.

Where possible, altered or damaged ecosystem functions will be restored through passive restoration techniques, such as the prevention of activities which degrade or prevent recovery. Passive restoration strategies will be paired with active interventions as needed. This can include: thinning juniper in the absence of fire, reducing the prevalence of noxious weeds through mechanical and chemical treatments, and reestablishing native vegetation on disturbed sites through the dispersal of indigenous grass and forb seed. It is hoped that these efforts will lead to conservation of biodiversity in the form of native fish, wildlife, and plant communities.

An additional goal for the project is to work in partnership with neighboring landowners, local, state and federal agencies, conservation organizations, and educational groups, and serve as an example of watershed recovery and wildlife habitat management in the lower John Day Basin. Successful monitoring of changes to vegetation, wildlife, fish use and distribution, and hydrology are critical to this effort.

Several specific management objectives are described in the approved Wildlife Habitat and Watershed Management Plan, and are to be addressed by this Statement of Work and its Work Elements. In most cases, WE's are ongoing activities developed in long term furtherance of the objectives. A set of administrative Work Elements within the scope of work will contribute to the achievement of all management plan objectives listed below.