FY 2002 Columbia Plateau proposal 25040

Section 1. General administrative information
Section 2. Past accomplishments
Section 3. Relationships to other projects
Section 4. Budgets for planning/design phase
Section 5. Budgets for construction/implementation phase
Section 6. Budgets for operations/maintenance phase
Section 7. Budgets for monitoring/evaluation phase
Section 8. Budget summary

Reviews and Recommendations

Additional documents

Title	Type
25040 Narrative	Narrative
25040 Sponsor Response to the ISRP	Response

Section 1. Administrative

Proposal title	Collection of baseline measurements of flow, temperature, channel morphology, riparian condition, and benthic macroinvertebrates, Trout Creek, Oregon
Proposal ID	25040
Organization	U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
Proposal contact person or principal investigator
Name	Bill Mcfarland
Mailing address	10615 SE Cherry Blossom Drive Portland OR 97216
Phone / email	5032513204 / [email protected]
Manager authorizing this project	Dennis Lynch, Oregon District Chief, USGS - WRD
Review cycle	Columbia Plateau
Province / Subbasin	Columbia Plateau / Deschutes
Short description	Measurement of physical and ecological habitat conditions prior to an extensive channel restoration project, thus enabling future quantitative evaluation of processes and conditions affected by channel restoration
Target species	Summer steelhead, Middle Columbia River steelhead ESU listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act

Project location

Latitude	Longitude	Description
44.7875	-120.92	Trout Creek, River Miles 13-18

Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives (RPAs)

Sponsor-reported:

RPA

Relevant RPAs based on NMFS/BPA review:

Reviewing agency	Action #	BiOp Agency	Description
NMFS	Action 154	NMFS	BPA shall work with the NWPPC to ensure development and updating of subbasin assessments and plans; match state and local funding for coordinated development of watershed assessments and plans; and help fund technical support for subbasin and watershed plan implementation from 2001 to 2006. Planning for priority subbasins should be completed by the 2003 check-in. The action agencies will work with other Federal agencies to ensure that subbasin and watershed assessments and plans are coordinated across non-Federal and Federal land ownerships and programs.

Section 2. Past accomplishments

Year	Accomplishment

Section 3. Relationships to other projects

Project ID	Title	Description
	Trout Creek channel restoration being planned and implemented by the Army Corps of Engineers	This study will collect baseline hydrologic, geomorphologic, and biologic information prior to implementation of the restoration project

Section 4. Budget for Planning and Design phase

Task-based budget

Objective	Duration in FYs	Estimated 2002 cost
1. Temperature, streamflow, and climate monitoring	1	$12,000
2. Channel geomorphology monitoring	1	$13,000
3. Riparian vegetation and macroinvertebrate monitoring	1	$5,000

Outyear objectives-based budget

Objective	Starting FY	Ending FY	Estimated cost
1.			$0
2.			$0
3.			$0

Outyear budgets for Planning and Design phase

Section 5. Budget for Construction and Implementation phase

Task-based budget

Objective	Duration in FYs	Estimated 2002 cost
1.	1	$48,000
2.	0	$0
3.	0	$0

Outyear objectives-based budget

Objective	Starting FY	Ending FY	Estimated cost
1.			$0
2.			$0
3.			$0

Outyear budgets for Construction and Implementation phase

Section 6. Budget for Operations and Maintenance phase

Task-based budget

Objective	Duration in FYs	Estimated 2002 cost
1.	2	$42,000
2.	2	$75,000
3.	2	$31,000

Outyear objectives-based budget

Objective	Starting FY	Ending FY	Estimated cost
1.	2003	2004	$108,000
2.	2003	2004	$96,000
3.	2003	2004	$33,000

Outyear budgets for Operations and Maintenance phase

FY 2003	FY 2004
$159,000	$78,000

Section 7. Budget for Monitoring and Evaluation phase

Task-based budget

Objective	Duration in FYs	Estimated 2002 cost
1.	0	$0
2.	3	$13,000
3.	0	$0

Outyear objectives-based budget

Objective	Starting FY	Ending FY	Estimated cost
1.	2003	2004	$45,000
2.	2003	2004	$54,000
3.	2003	2004	$24,000

Outyear budgets for Monitoring and Evaluation phase

FY 2003	FY 2004
$19,000	$104,000

Section 8. Estimated budget summary

Itemized budget

Item	Note	FY 2002 cost
Personnel	FTE: 2	$93,000
Fringe		$22,000
Supplies		$30,000
Travel		$12,000
Indirect		$62,000
Capital		$0
NEPA		$0
PIT tags		$0
Subcontractor		$0
Other	laboratory analyses	$20,000
		$239,000

Total estimated budget

Total FY 2002 cost	$239,000
Amount anticipated from previously committed BPA funds	$0
Total FY 2002 budget request	$239,000
FY 2002 forecast from 2001	$0
% change from forecast	0.0%

Cost sharing

Organization	Item or service provided	Amount	Cash or in-kind

Reviews and recommendations

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

REVIEW:
ISRP Preliminary Review (ISRP 2001-6)

Recommendation:
Fundable only if response is adequate

Date:
Jun 15, 2001

Comment:

Fundable if adequate responses are given to ISRP concerns.

This proposal is to collect baseline data of physical and biological conditions on a five-mile section of Trout Creek prior to the implementation of a USACE channel restoration project. The proposal is to collect detailed baseline data of physical and biological conditions. It would be good for the authors to address specifically the minimum amount of detail necessary to evaluate the effect of restoration activities.

How will data collection efforts be prioritized?
How will the PI decide the amount of data necessary to test response? What is "adequate?"

While the channel restoration activities do offer the opportunity to evaluate the effects of channel restoration, this proposal raises the question of funding responsibility. Is it the responsibility of the USACE to fund the collection of baseline data to support an assessment of the success of restoration actions? Shouldn't this be part of the standard NEPA assessments? If this project goes forward coordination with USACE should take place at the design stage to ensure consistency of project approach with monitoring needs.

Should this proposal be directly tied to #199802800 as basis for M&E for that project. Objectives are to gather data, leaving the actual M&E of the restoration work unplanned, perhaps this project should be expanded to include actual M&E, to show how it would be done. How are the study sites selected for"...a grid spacing of about 1 m for channel lengths of up 100 m."? Should the sites be randomly selected by say the EPA EMAP procedures developed in Corvallis? How will one know that the results apply to the 5-mile reach otherwise? This project might be coordinated with #25088 and #25010.

Why is there no basic (Tier 1) monitoring for fish? Presence/absence, snorkel survey before and after? Details should be given to ensure that Tier II level monitoring will be implemented in the watershed (see the introduction to this report).

The study is well planned, although some details depend on the Corps, their schedule, etc. Some references to "standard" USGS survey procedures should be described or referenced. What are the standard USGS survey procedures? How will someone in the future know exactly what was done?

Flow, temperature and turbidity are to be measured at sites above and below the study reach. Is it not necessary to measure the other physical variables (channel geometry, etc.) and biological variables (vegetation & macroinvertebrates) above and below the site?

A similar project seems to be proposed by USGS for the birch creek basin, a tributary to the Umatilla river. Why are both of these projects needed?

REVIEW:
CBFWA Funding Recommendation

Recommendation:
Recommended Action

Date:
Aug 3, 2001

Comment:

This proposal will: 1.) provide pre-implementation baseline data before Corps berms are removed, and 2.) perform evaluations that are more fine scale than the other Trout Creek projects. The reviewers recommend coordinating the Trout Creek projects through an "umbrella" approach.

REVIEW:
ISRP Final Review (ISRP 2001-8)

Recommendation:
Fund

Date:
Aug 10, 2001

Comment:

Fundable. The proponents adequately addressed the concerns of the ISRP. Briefly, this proposal is to provide"...a mechanistic understanding of processes associated with a large channel-restoration project (Tier 3 monitoring), which likely will result in substantial changes to channel and floodplain conditions. As such, this project is generally outside the scope of project-level M&E typically associate with projects such as #199802800." Most of our concerns revolved around the question of the level of monitoring in this project (Tier 3) and its relationship to Tier 1 and 2 monitoring.

A minor point on the design of the study is that the ISRP continues to recommend that channel morphology be measured above as well as within or below the study reach to help show that any changes are due to the restoration actions and not to other confounding factors (drought, flood, global warming, etc.). We do not recommend that the study include measurements of benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages because natural variation appears to be so high as to preclude meaningful analysis and interpretation of results.

The discussion of the need for this project and that proposed in #25016 (Birch Creek) seemed weak. We recommend that Council consider whether both of these projects are needed.

REVIEW:
NMFS Review

Recommendation:

Date:
Oct 1, 2001

Comment:

Statement of Potential Biological Benefit to ESU
Project would measure physical & ecological habitat conditions prior to a channel restoration project, thus enabling future quantitative evaluation of processes & conditions affected by channel restoration.

Comments
M&E project? Since project would provide pre-implementation baseline data before Corps berms are removed, and perform evaluations that are more fine scale than the other Trout Creek projects, recommend coordinating the Trout Creek projects through an "umbrella" approach. Also, question of funding opportunity -- does the Corps have authority to collect of baseline data to support an assessment of the success of restoration actions associated with a Corps project?

Already ESA Req? no

Biop? yes

REVIEW:
BPA Funding Recommendation

Recommendation:
Rank C

Date:
Oct 16, 2001

Comment:

Although this project addresses a very important need (monitoring the effectiveness of habitat improvements) in a stream where steelhead population effects (in addition to environmental effects) may well be measurable, we believe it is not timely and is too costly. Because the COE plans to begin actual fieldwork in the summer of 2002, there will be only a few spring months of 2002 in which to collect baseline data. One year of data is not adequate to describe baseline environmental conditions, and only a few months of data are even less useful. At $239,000, those data would be expensive. The proposal also does not state which metrics might be most useful for clearly identifying biologically meaningful effects of the stream habitat enhancement work.

REVIEW:
NWPPC Funding Recommendation

Recommendation:
Do Not Fund

Date:
Jan 3, 2002

Comment: