FY 2002 Mountain Snake proposal 28043

Section 1. Administrative

Project location

Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives (RPAs)

Section 2. Past accomplishments

Section 3. Relationships to other projects

Section 4. Budget for Planning and Design phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Planning and Design phase

Section 5. Budget for Construction and Implementation phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Construction and Implementation phase

Section 6. Budget for Operations and Maintenance phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Operations and Maintenance phase

Section 7. Budget for Monitoring and Evaluation phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Monitoring and Evaluation phase

Section 8. Estimated budget summary

Itemized budget

Total estimated budget

Cost sharing

Reviews and recommendations

This information was not provided on the original proposals, but was generated during the review process.

Comment:

Dredge mining legacy identified as one of the major limiting factors in the Crooked River for summer/spring chinook and steelhead. Bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout occur in the river's upper reaches. Dredge legacy is all in the lower section (a little in the middle section). How much consideration has been given to rehabilitating the dredge areas, like the ISRP observed in Granite Creek in the North Fork John Day River? Large-scale and expensive restoration efforts in these highly degraded systems are probably generally unwarranted, unless specific historical and biological information can be used to justify the action in a specific location through a predicted strong positive response from the target salmonid species.

The EAWS assessment and the prioritization criteria should include allow an assessment of how critical reclamation of the dredged areas are to steelhead and chinook production in the Crooked River system. In turn, this will provide direction for the suite of proposed future activities and give insight into the scale and expense of restoration alternative in the Crooked River system.

The review group suggests that future terrestrial monitoring efforts be made compatible with one of the national terrestrial survey efforts. Perhaps an intensification of the National Resources Inventory survey sites and data collection protocols would serve the region well. See the Proposals #200002300 and #200020116 and ISRP reviews in the Columbia Plateau.

Comment:

Comment:

The proposal makes a logical case for the need for the EAWS assessment of the Crooked River and for the development of criteria to prioritize watershed restoration alternatives. Once a final set of implementation actions is identified, and before the time and expense of the NEPA preparation occurs, the proposed implementation plan should be reviewed by an independent scientific group. As project sponsors note in their response, re-restoration of the dredged areas (a 1980's restoration project is generally viewed as being unsuccessful) probably will not be appropriate.

The proposal seeks funding for one year of surveys prior to EAWS preparation. The review panel feels that some of those surveys (such as sensitive plant surveys, wildlife habitat/population surveys) are not amenable to Bonneville funding and recommends that they be supported by the USFS if really needed for the EAWS. If such funding is not available and the survey work is deemed critical for the EAWS, the ISRP recommends that the EAWS be deferred to a later funding cycle. The ISRP agrees with CBFWA that the watershed assessment should be completed prior to funding implementation activities. It may be that the best restoration plan for Crooked River is to simply leave it alone.

The ISRP endorses the proponent's proposal to investigate the possibility of linking terrestrial surveys to a national effort. The intent of the ISRP is not necessarily to provide data to the current NRI. Rather, the intent of the review comment was to suggest that data collected as part of project 28043 (at the local level for local inferences) might be collected at sites selected as an intensification of the current NRI sites using common data measurement protocols so that results could be more easily combined and compared at larger scales, e.g., to compare the Crooked River and Potlatch subbasins or the Clearwater and Salmon subbasins. Also see, the review of Project 28025.

To assist in establishing a sound basinwide monitoring program, the proponents are referred to the programmatic section of this report on Monitoring, the specific comments on Aquatic Monitoring and Evaluation, and the specific comments on Terrestrial Monitoring and Evaluation.

Comment:

Comments
This project will complete a watershed assessment, but this river system is not a priority subbasin under the BiOp.

Already ESA Req? No

Biop? Yes

Comment:

BPA RPA RPM:
--

NMFS RPA/USFWS RPM:
154

Comment: