FY07-09 proposal 199401500

Jump to Reviews and Recommendations

Section 1. Administrative

Contacts

Section 2. Locations

Province / subbasin: Mountain Snake / Salmon

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: To date, all O&M costs associated with BPA funded projects has been borne by CRFDP. That funding source has limited ability to continue to fund these items. Beginning in FY07, a line item for O&M will be submitted at a beginning amount of $50,000 per fiscal year. This funding will be used to make adjustments to projects following M&E findings of deficiency. Some new projects, especially fish passage projects at diversions, may need to be modified following high water events. Occasionally, vegetation growth following project completion is insufficient. Fish screens require some annual maintenance.

Termination date: None
Comments: This ongoing project has an abundance of work available into the future. Most future work areas have never been screened. Prior to installing fish screens all effort is made to provide for in-stream flow, eliminate diversions, consolidate diversions, and apply water conservation measures. Fewer diversions mean less downstream entrainment and better upstream passage for all species. Screens can be of smaller size, cost less, and future maintenance costs can be limited by reducing the number of diversions needing screened. These actions are time consuming and all require extensive permitting. Most diverters in future work areas have never been involved or associated with resource work. Many are hesitant to become involved. Water conservation measures, the most important aspect of fisheries recovery, is very expensive. In some drainages, costs per cfs of water conserved have exceeded $100,000. Many diversions are upon lands administered by Federal land management agencies. Negotiation and coordination with these agencies can be extensive. Much of the preliminary work ongoing this year will not be completed for five years into the future. Installing fish screens before the problem of tributary de-watering has been addressed, will not achieve quality resource recovery.

Final deliverables: An annual report will be submitted at the end of every fiscal year. All fisheries data collected will be submitted and made available to interested parties. Easements and agreements concluded under this propoasal will be available for review. Deliverables include fish screens, fish passageways, water conservation systems, and other capital installations. Tecnical reports, engineered drawings, stream survey reports, and cultural survey reports will be made available to other interested parties and submitted as deliverables.

Section 10. Narrative and other documents

Reviews and recommendations

ISRP PRELIMINARY REVIEW (Jun 2, 2006)

Recommendation: Response requested

NPCC comments: In most regards this is a very nicely prepared proposal that includes an excellent overview of project history. Responses are needed on two items. The ISRP wonders where the agency currently stands in the process of completing the needed fish screens. In 2003 they made the statement: "Idaho is approximately 75% complete with the screening effort of known diversions in anadromous waters. Consistent funding could assist completing the known work by 2005." Where are they now after three additional years of funding? From the current proposal, it now appears the screening can go on indefinitely. The second issue: Is water saved due to these projects being returned to the streams and remaining in-channel? A response is needed on the benefit of irrigation improvement (sprinkler conversion, etc.) to instream flows.

ISRP FINAL REVIEW (Aug 31, 2006)

Recommendation: Fundable

NPCC comments: This was a very nicely prepared proposal that included an excellent overview of project history and results to date. Very clear and detailed responses were provided to reviewers' questions. Responses were requested on two items. First, the ISRP asked where the agency currently stands in the process of completing the needed fish screens. The response indicated that 75% of all the known main stem river corridor diversions, including those on the Lemhi River, Little Salmon River, Pahsimeroi River, East Fork Salmon River, North Fork Salmon River, and main stem Salmon River, have had fish screens installed. At present there is one Salmon River diversion with an antiquated fish screen in need of replacement. There is one diversion on the Lemhi River that also is in need of a better fish screen. The North Fork Salmon River has two unscreened diversions. The East Fork Salmon River has three diversions in need of NOAA Criteria screens. One is currently under contract, and the other two are in design phase. In addition, "there are many years of future work to screen tributaries that are in occupied anadromous habitat. These diversions number several hundred in occupied anadromous waters of the upper Salmon River Basin. Unlike the main stem river diversions which generally do not involve dewatered reaches and water–savings projects, almost all tributaries have potential water-savings projects due to seasonally dewatered reaches and unscreened diversions. This makes fish screening that much more complicated in tributaries as there are generally multiple water conservation projects that are needed to complement a fish screen project in order to make a fish screen effort effective. These primarily include improving fish passage with fish passable diversions and fish screens, and increasing instream flow by water-savings projects and installation or improvement of water control structures." The second issue was whether water saved due to these projects was being returned to the streams and remaining in the stream channel. The response indicated, "The purpose for installing sprinkler systems and installing pipelines is to keep water instream. These systems are only installed if there can be some assurances the water will remain instream. The Idaho Screen Program works on a tributary wide approach in order to provide the best possible results. Unless the saved water can be shepparded (sic) through the tributary and allow fish passage in lower stream flow conditions, then the project is not considered." While in general this is a beneficial approach for fish, the statement "if there can be some assurances the water will remain instream" is not as concrete as it might be. Whether such projects include any legal provision for instream flow was unclear. Reviewers encourage the sponsors to continue to strengthen this emphasis to the greatest extent possible. Reviewers appreciate the detail provided in the response regarding how the risk of passage blockage and diversion entrainment varies over an irrigation season by fish species and life stage. Certainly the number of smolting fish diverted and killed in these projects represents an important loss that can only be compensated via factors outside-the-basin, perhaps an unlikely scenario. Because the loss of smolting fish would be the most important loss in freshwater apart from the death of an adult fish, the sponsors might (if not already done) assign higher priority to screening needs at sites where smolting fish predominate than for sites typically entraining younger fish. It would be helpful in the future to see more details regarding this issue and its relative importance at various sites.