FY07-09 proposal 198805307

Jump to Reviews and Recommendations

Section 1. Administrative

Contacts

Section 2. Locations

Province / subbasin: Columbia Gorge / Hood

Section 3. Focal species

Section 4. Past accomplishments

Section 5. Relationships to other projects

Section 6. Biological objectives

Section 7. Work elements (coming back to this)

Section 8. Budgets

Itemized estimated budget

Total estimated FY 2007-2009 budgets

Cost sharing

Section 9. Project future

Future O&M costs: The project consists of operation and maintenance of the Parkdale Fish Facility. All costs contribute towards this work for the Hood River Production Program.

Termination date: 2020 or beyond
Comments: This is part of a supplementation program. It is uncertain at what point artficial production will not be necessary to maintain steelhead and chinook runs in Hood River, or if further data will support different management scenarios.

Final deliverables: Annual reports and data provided on a regular basis.

Section 10. Narrative and other documents

Reviews and recommendations

ISRP PRELIMINARY REVIEW (Jun 2, 2006)

Recommendation: Response requested

NPCC comments: The incomplete nature of this proposal, both potential missing sections as well as a lack of needed data should be addressed before funding is considered. This project addresses adult broodstock holding, spawning, and smolt acclimation and volitional releases at the Parkdale Fish Facility located on the Middle Fork Hood River (RM 4.0). In cooperation with several ODFW facilities and operations, Powerdale Dam Fish Trap, Oak Springs Hatchery, and Round Butte Hatchery/Pelton Ladder, this project is a portion of the Hood River summer and winter steelhead and Chinook production. Technical and scientific background: The co-managers have recently made major changes in run targets within the Hood River subbasin, e.g., "Following the completion of the HR Review, the co-managers agreed upon the future direction of the HRPP. The co-managers have revised the numerical adult fish objectives (French and Vaivoda, unpublished). This was done considering not only the HR Review, but also the Hood River Subbasin Plan. Overall the revised objectives are lower than originally proposed (Tables 4 and 5). Changes to the HRPP are being developed to make necessary operational and facility adaptations so that the program remains biologically sound, the objectives are attainable, and the resources in the Hood River basin will continue to be enhanced and protected. The changes were based upon the assimilated data and output from several models run on the Hood River system, including the EDT model (Coccoli, 2004) and the Unit Characteristic Model, developed by Cramer and Associates (Underwood et al., 2003).” Table 4. Adult steelhead and Chinook escapement goals to the Hood River from the Hood River Master Plan drafted in 1991 (O’Toole and ODFW, 1991). Species Naturally Produced Adults Hatchery Produced Adults Total Winter Steelhead 1,200 3,800 5,000 Summer Steelhead 1,200 6,800 8,000 Spring Chinook 400 1,300 1,700 Table 5. Proposed adult steelhead and Chinook escapement goals to the mouth of the Hood River drafted in 2004 by HRPP co-managers (French and Vaivoda, unpublished). Species Naturally Produced Adults Hatchery Produced Adults Total Winter Steelhead 656 1,000 1,656 Summer Steelhead 375 600 975 Spring Chinook 128 750 878 The proposal uses these new goals, but fails to mention at all how much progress is being made. Project history: There is some history, but with little presentation of result to assess any level of success. Some of this is addressed in other sections of the proposal. Objectives: The proposal describes a termination date of 2020 or beyond. This is part of a supplementation program, not a long-term hatchery intervention program. Sponsors go on to say, “It is uncertain at what point artificial production will not be necessary to maintain steelhead and Chinook runs in Hood River, or if further data will support different management scenarios." A statement such as this does not seem compatible with the purpose of supplementation programs in general. Monitoring and evaluation needs to be better described in the response. Information transfer: The lack of publications and the lack of a sense of need to do so is disturbing in all the Hood River related projects. The proposal’s reference section does not have one peer-reviewed paper in it. How can a foundation for a proposal not have one? Benefits to focal and non-focal species: Unknown and not discussed.

ISRP FINAL REVIEW (Aug 31, 2006)

Recommendation: Fundable

NPCC comments: The ISRP particularly welcomes the pledge by the sponsors to dedicate staff in FY 2007 to synthesizing data and submitting manuscripts for publication in peer reviewed journals, using information collected by the Hood River monitoring and evaluation projects, the Parkdale Fish Facility, and the Powerdale Fish Trap. A concern identified by the ISRP in the Hood River habitat project (199802100) is the need to assess the extent to which the residualism of hatchery steelhead is resulting in the displacement of wild fish from Hood River habitat. It is expected that much of this task will be done in close conjunction with projects 199805303 and 198805304. It is important to ensure that the benefits to wild salmon and steelhead are fully realized because some of the fish response to the habitat work might be confounded by residualized steelhead. An over-riding issue with respect to the suite of Hood River projects is to more fully define the future timeline and objectives for the project, particularly with the impending loss of Powerdale as a counting and monitoring station. Sponsor’s judgment on success of the program is premature. For example, statements such as "Underwood et al. (2003) used Hood River adult returns and smolt to adult rates to determine whether or not the hatchery component of the program was contributing to the wild fish runs. The winter steelhead hatchery supplementation has benefited the wild population and has met or exceeded program goals (Underwood et al., 2003, p.218)" need to be examined more closely and peer reviewed. In this particular proposal, the reporting of results is merely a list of tasks accomplished; however, the M&E component should cover the monitoring for this project. The following are the seven ISRP concerns from the preliminary review and an assessment of the sponsor’s responses: 1) “The incomplete nature of this proposal, both potential missing sections as well as a lack of needed data should be addressed before funding is considered.” The following was the basis for the rest of the detailed response to this issue, “There was a formatting error in the text of the original proposal (on page 8 of the narrative) that made it seem as though section C was missing, This section was actually there. Otherwise the proposal contains all required sections.” The response was adequate. 2) “The proposal uses these new goals, but fails to mention at all how much progress is being made.” Much explanation (with figures) was added to help in this area. 3) “Project history: There is some history, but with little presentation of results to assess any level of success. Some of this is addressed in other sections of the proposal.” An adequate explanation was given. 4) “Objectives: The proposal describes a termination date of 2020 or beyond. This is part of a supplementation program, not a long-term hatchery intervention program. Sponsors go on to say, ‘It is uncertain at what point artificial production will not be necessary to maintain steelhead and Chinook runs in Hood River, or if further data will support different management scenarios.’ A statement such as this does not seem compatible with the purpose of supplementation programs in general.” An adequate explanation was given, followed by “The co-managers will discuss the termination date of the program and the future of the supplementation project in FY 2007. This will be included in the FY 2007 statement of work and the results of this work will be incorporated into the Hood River Master Plan revision.” 5) “Monitoring and evaluation needs to be better described in the response.” The response consisted of a simple rehash of a short list – no real contribution. 6) “Information transfer: The lack of publications and the lack of a sense of need to do so is disturbing in all the Hood River related projects.” A similar promise as another, “The sponsor will dedicate staff in FY 2007 to synthesizing data and submitting manuscripts for publication in peer reviewed journals.” Accomplishment will be monitored. 7) “Benefits to focal and non-focal species: Unknown and not discussed.” This oversight was addressed briefly, but adequately.