FY07-09 proposal 198805304

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:

Termination date: None
Comments: This project is currently ongoing.

Final deliverables:

Section 10. Narrative and other documents

Reviews and recommendations

ISRP PRELIMINARY REVIEW (Jun 2, 2006)

Recommendation: Response requested

NPCC comments: The ISRP requests that project sponsors respond to the following issues: The proposal was reasonably crafted and thorough, in spite of an extraordinarily dense visual presentation and technical writing that made for an arduous review effort. While the proposal did not have any marked deficiencies, it was difficult to review as it was not clearly and logically organized. The ISRP has concerns over the project design, how the project will be handled and data collected after removal of Powerdale, and over the lack of publications from such a data-rich project. The objectives and methods sections were presented more as lists than as integrated pieces of work, leaving the reviewer to infer linkages and relationships. This specific M&E project proposes to collect species, race, and stock specific life history, production, escapement, run size, morphometric, meristic, and genetic information at juvenile and adult migrant traps located at selected sites throughout the Hood River subbasin. Information collected at the trapping facilities will be used to 1) refine the numerical fish objectives for wild summer and winter steelhead and natural spring Chinook salmon, to more accurately reflect the subbasins current and potential species and race specific spawner escapement and smolt production carrying capacities; 2) refine the numerical fish objectives for subbasin spawner escapements and harvest of summer and winter steelhead and spring Chinook salmon, 3) more accurately estimate species, race, and stock specific subbasin smolt-to-adult survival rates; 4) evaluate acclimation facilities; 5) monitor the incidental catch/take of wild and hatchery summer and winter steelhead in mainstem Columbia River fisheries, 6) develop guidelines for implementing the HRPP in a biologically sound manner, 7) evaluate both the Pelton ladder rearing facility and the proposed expanded hatchery facility at Parkdale, 8) develop guidelines for implementing the hatchery supplementation program in a manner that will minimize the HRPP’s impact on indigenous populations of resident and anadromous salmonids; and 9) develop and refine strategies and guidelines for implementing the HRPP in a manner that will improve program efficiency and benefits. Based on this description, it appears that lots of data have been (or will be) gathered; however, item 8 – the development of guidelines for implementing the hatchery supplementation program in a manner that will minimize the HRPP’s impact on indigenous populations of resident and anadromous salmonids – does not seem to have been dealt with. Escapement goals listed in Tables 1 and 2 differ significantly between those proposed by the 1991 Master Plan and the more recent scaling done by EDT. The more recent estimates are considerably more conservative. Presumably, the latter estimates are more reflective of carrying capacity estimates via EDT, than the earlier Master Plan goals. Powerdale Dam provides the HRPP the opportunity to enumerate all returning adults and to control or eliminate escapement of out-of-basin strays. That ability will be lost in 2010 when Powerdale is removed. It will be interesting to see how the sponsors propose to manage the various stocks in the Hood system once that happens. The ability to control strays and enumerate returning adults is an important current attribute of the system that will need to be addressed in future proposals, without which, the larger goals of the HRPP may be compromised. Relationships to other projects is well described, particularly so for other projects within the Hood River system. The project history carefully describes the tasks performed and includes a number of tables and figures from annual reports that, if they had been combined with a few pages of summary narrative, would have nicely described past results. Unfortunately that was not done. The question of whether the supplementation programs for summer and winter steelhead and chinook are working is never addressed! Objectives are often simply superficial escapement goals set by the program, not objectives and strategies designed to accomplish them. The proposal does not lay out specific objectives and methods to evaluate supplementation. The methods section is simply a listing of field techniques, with little information on experimental design. The lack of journal publication is disappointing given the duration and data-rich nature of the program.

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 199802100 and 198805303. 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. The 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. The following are the three initial ISRP concerns and an assessment of the sponsor’s responses: 1) The lack of peer reviewed publications. The sponsors did not provide an adequate response to this question but noted that budget and time constraints most likely precluded publication efforts. 2) Project design post-Powerdale Dam. Although the authors stated, “We did not address how we propose implementing this project post- Powerdale Dam, primarily because the dam is not slated for removal until after the upcoming three year funding cycle,” they went on to give a reasonable explanation. 3) Lack of management recommendations stemming from data collected on this M&E project. The authors responded with a multi-page listing of recommendations covering a broad range of topics that was sound and convincing.