The proposal contains good background information and is well prepared. The project has identified priority habitats and activities. The sponsors have responded to previous ISRP concerns. This is a long-term project the sponsors have provided good results from the initial work.  The sponsors are purchasing properties with Avista mitigation money from Albeni Falls, encouraging beaver activity and learning from work in John Day, Coeur d’Alene, and Colorado. One question remains: Is the intent to rebuild resident populations for Tribal harvest or for conservation purposes only?

1. Purpose: Significance to Regional Programs, Technical Background, and Objectives

Recovery of redband trout is clearly an appropriate restoration priority, and the efforts implemented under this project to date have been focused in areas that are high priority for these fish in the Hangman Creek watershed. The existing project sites are in riparian areas with potential to contribute to groundwater recharge and located near existing populations of redband trout. This project is designed to address landscape issues that limit base flow at the streams in the project area and is responsible for landscape restoration as a precursor to the work done in stream and near stream to establish a redband trout fishery. This project was submitted in conjunction with 200103200 which studies instream fish habitats in the same area. The project focuses on increasing base stream flows by obtaining access to land in several ways, such as, land acquisition, conservation easements, leases and landowner agreements. This project provides dual benefits, (1) credits against HU ledger of wildlife habitat lost from Albeni Falls Dam, and (2) crucial habitat for redband trout (NPCC established a resident fish substitution policy in areas blocked from anadromous fish passage). 

Once restored, stream channels within the mitigation property will expand the isolated redband population in Sheep Creek and increase the probability of that population’s interactions with the other isolated populations of the Upper Hangman Watershed. This Project will focus on monitoring changes in ground water and provide funding for stream flow monitoring.

2. History: Accomplishments, Results, and Adaptive Management (ISRP Review of Results)

The project history was described in detail. Restoration efforts target the impaired aquatic and riparian ecosystem processes supported by several citations in a previous limiting factor analysis which included hydraulic modeling. High stream temperatures documented (2004-2007), along with low summer flows, high sediment levels and inadequate DO yielded suboptimal rearing conditions for fish. A genetic analysis of isolated redband trout populations in the project area showed a cohesive group and suggests that historically there was movement among subpopulations in the area. Genetic information now suggests that either substantial inbreeding has occurred or each subpopulation experienced a recent genetic bottleneck. Collectively, results suggest increasing connectivity of tributary subpopulations would promote a more robust and resilient population structure. Also, redband trout are relatively pure in spite of rainbow trout introduced regularly in the Spokane River (1933-2002).

3. Project Relationships, Emerging Limiting Factors, and Tailored Questions for Type of Work (hatchery, RME, tagging)

This project is closely related to 200103200 which is the CDA Fisheries Enhancement for the same project area. The ISEMP Bridge Creek Watershed Study provided the direction for addressing large-scale landscape issues associated with entrenched stream channels and low base flows. From 2004 to 2007, high stream temperatures during the spawning/incubation period of early summer (Figure 4) and low flows (e.g., isolated pools and dewatered reaches) coupled with inadequate dissolved oxygen levels (i.e., < 7 mg/L) during summer base flow periods presented suboptimal rearing conditions for redband trout in the lower elevational portions of the Project Area that are heavily impacted by agriculture. These findings join a growing body of evidence that indicate the ubiquitous distribution of the low base flows, lack of oxygen, high summer stream temperatures and high sediment loads in the larger, lower elevation streams of the Project Area have relegated the remnant populations of native redband trout to the isolated, higher elevation, forested stream reaches of the Project Area.

The sponsors also recognized issues involving climate change on ground water tables and noxious weeds. They suggest that restoration of natural vegetation along the riparian zone will help offset these issues. A noxious weed issue has been identified in the agricultural lands associated with native vegetation planting, and control measures, including mowing, burning, and herbicides are being evaluated. In addition to the riparian habitat work, they are assisting the beavers with their dams by providing materials suitable for dam construction.

4. Deliverables, Work Elements, Metrics, and Methods

Four deliverables were mentioned: (1) Access to priority habitats: some priority land has been acquired, with more needed, (2) Riparian/Floodplain Management: decommissioned artificial drainage networks in the agricultural, (3) Create beaver dams that withstand high flows and persist and (4) Develop indices indicating increase in duration of shallow groundwater storage in flood. Initially, three 40 foot wells were established in 2006 at confluence of Hangman and Sheep Creek where water depth did not vary from year to year. Regarding beaver dams, 82 small dams were found in a 2009 survey, and with improvement of dam material, they believe the dams can store considerably more water for the project. Storing water in the area is believed to be a critically important component of achieving restoration goals, and the ISRP agrees. The ongoing project only completed 71% of the contract deliverables, but many of these failures were due to quarterly reports. Annual reports have been on time. 

4a. Specific comments on protocols and methods described in MonitoringMethods.org

Data collected for this project is limited because the fish and aquatic habitat RME work is covered in a different project (200103200). But project relationships are clearly described. Data collected for this project includes the success of the establishment of native vegetation planted, beaver dam surveys, and the evaluation of shallow groundwater level at 2-week intervals in 18 shallow wells. Interesting data from these wells was provided in the proposal to illustrate baseline patterns of groundwater loss during summer. A USGS gauging station and several others are used to monitor surface flow.

The past ISRP review had concerns about "ongoing pattern of climate and stream flow" not being addressed. The response to this concern was "groundwater modeling” completed in 2007 that demonstrated drain tile removal would assist in maintaining base flows. Also, studies suggest that watershed changes could be brought about with construction and maintenance of beaver dams that would rebuild floodplain connectivity.

Earlier, the ISRP had concerns about explaining the difference between this project and the associated fisheries project. The sponsors responded that this project involves landscape level issues that limit in stream fish habitat dealing with agricultural methods, management rights, riparian management, and terrestrial habitat restoration. Other information regarding M&E is covered in the fisheries project.

Modified by Dal Marsters on 4/17/2012 2:44:35 PM.

Funding is scientifically justified for land acquisition, conservation easement, riparian management, and M&E only. The qualification is that M&E methods need to be expanded to include fish (even before trout return to the project area, if they do).

This long, disorganized proposal contained much irrelevant material and was exceedingly hard to review. The project might work out in the long term, but the proposal did not give confidence that the effort is being soundly conducted. The response retrieved the situation to some extent. The proposal did not present an adequate strategy for the project. The technical and scientific background was poorly organized and contained much information more suited to the project history. The project is a mix of land purchase and managements; the latter not clearly described. The problems to be dealt with are not clearly defined, and the purpose of the project was not stated until page 6.

The "original" project goal (page 6) was: "Protect and/or restore riparian and priority upland habitats . . . to promote healthy, self-sustaining wildlife populations," the present project goal being left unstated. The proposal next says this will involve landscape-level management to complement a companion project (200103200) that deals with fish habitat in the same system. However, the sponsors describe no habitat requirements for wildlife species, allude to little about the area as wildlife habitat, and apparently name wildlife species only once ("monitoring . . . will include parameters on land birds, waterfowl, bald eagles, small mammals, herpetofauna"). Instead, it delves more into matters of fish and streams, including a section on "Native Fish Habitat Protection Work Elements," and even genetic make-up of redband trout. Thus, the project inexplicably changed to deal with both fish and terrestrial wildlife, and to deal with in-stream management, as well as upland and riparian matters. The sponsors do not adequately explain the relationship of this change to Project 200103200, which was to deal with aquatic matters.

Significance to the subbasin plan was adequately shown in the proposal. The response's reporting of results was adequate, considering the short duration of the project.

The proposal's section F, Biological Objectives, Work Elements and Methods, contains no outline of objectives but is a rambling, partly historical discussion involving various diffuse statements of objective with no clearly listed work elements, and with some intermixture of methods.

The ISRP asked for response on the extent to which this project is expected to benefit fish and wildlife, asked how fish and wildlife would use the properties protected by the easements, and commented that the project history section described activities, not results or management implications. A response was needed describing these results and how they have been shown to benefit fish and wildlife. The detailed response augmented the original proposal and clarified the logic behind the effort. As a result, the acquisition and conservation easement portions of the proposal appear justified, although biologically there is some risk.

The ISRP asked why no cogent information was provided to indicate that the proposed activities would benefit redband trout, which compose the fish population at issue. The response explained how obtaining easements and promoting riparian vegetation could help reestablish the habitat connectivity that the small, isolated redband populations need. It did not show that the fish need the proposed in-channel restructuring. The proposal mentioned "Enhancement opportunities" in Section F, but techniques to enhance stream channels for trout were not discussed in any useful detail. From the description of work elements, $400K would be used to realign 0.7 miles of Sheep Creek and $400K would be used to change the channel morphology of 2 miles of upper Hangman Creek. Passive restoration appeared not to have been considered in the proposal, and the response indicated judgment that a fully passive approach would not suffice, but that further physical analyses need to be done. The proposed channel work is not yet scientifically justified. Judging scientific soundness is not possible for the large ($600K) program to realign the Sheep Creek channel and change morphology in Hangman Creek. Given more information, such actions might be justified, but the proposal contains insufficient information on this subject to enable a review. If the sponsors undertake a proposal for stream habitat work in a future review cycle, it should draw significantly on the expertise of hydrologists and fluvial geomorphologists, working in conjunction with stream fish ecologists.

A problem not covered in the proposal is the unfavorable and apparently ongoing pattern of climate and stream flow, in which high stream flow is occurring earlier in the year and is followed by months of extreme low flow during worsening annual droughts. This does not bode well for re-population by trout from higher elevations into re-created habitat lower in the valley, where the water is already excessively warm in summer. Promoting riparian vegetation could help overcome this problem (and would benefit many forms of wildlife, as well), but the proposed channel restructuring, as described, would not.

The ISRP was critical in the past review of this project's lack of M&E, and M&E still was not adequately described in the 2007-2007 proposal either. The response presented detailed material on the M&E plan, which concentrates on terrestrial matters. No M&E elements concerning fish and fish habitat were evident, and this is a major deficiency in view of the project's trend in planned activity toward emphasis on fish habitat. The M&E's aquatic aspects could be improved by more specific linking with the other projects that cover the fish.