FY 2003 Mainstem/Systemwide proposal 200304000

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:

The approach taken by the project will be to characterize the acoustic environment of the plume, model signal propagation (to adjust for noise in the plume environment), design the detection system, set tag criteria and design, conduct prototype tests, then proceed to full-scale monitoring. Risks identified by the proponents are the difficulties of obtaining adequate sample sizes, the fixed array design, cost, and limited detection range due to phase shift encoding. The number of uniquely identifiable tags was originally noted as a limiting factor, but the authors noted that the use of phase-shifts has effectively eliminated that concern.

The technical background is well written and complete. The rationale for the importance of understanding juvenile use and survival in the plume is clearly significant to regional programs. Also, the project is most closely related to a companion NMFS project (BPA 199801400) and to some USACE projects on estuarine physical dynamics. The tasks and methods are described in appropriate detail. A very strong development and research team has been organized for this proposal.

The objectives are to determine plume residence times of ocean and stream type salmon, characterize fine-scale spatial use of the plume by these two types, and integrate results with the companion NMFS project to build a biophysical model relating Columbia River plume conditions to the growth, distribution and survival of juvenile salmonids.

The ISRP wishes to complement these investigators for their substantial progress on the micro-tag to date. We have previously noted the essential need to study salmonid residency and use of the Columbia River estuary and plume, and this tag now offers the potential to achieve this. However, we have two major concerns with the receiver arrays. First, we note that the development of the fixed and mobile arrays apparently doubles the costs for this portion of the work. Secondly, we are familiar with the work of Dr. David Welch (CDFO, Pacific Biological Station, project proposal #30007, Estuary province), and BPA has previously support his research. Dr. Welch has put a substantial investment of time into designing fixed arrays, their deployment, and how to retrieve the data received. Since this must be a very small group of researchers in this field, we were concerned by the evident lack of collaboration? Are there valid technical reasons for not collaborating or is the intention of these investigators to develop totally different receivers and array systems?

Concerning the arrays, we request the proponent to consider a phased development plan for the two systems (if both are needed) and provide justification for the choice of array. From the perspective the ISRP, development of the fixed arrays would seem to best address Regional priorities at this time. The issue of residence time and habitat use for downstream migrating smolts actually begins below Bonneville Dam. Questions about their rate of migration and estuary residence are equally as important to the estuary studies and could also be assessed with this technology. Concerning research in the ocean plume environment, our first priority is to determine the duration of use and overall survival. The detailed micro-habitat use by salmonids clearly addresses mechanisms effecting growth, survival, etc. but are finer scale questions that can be phased in over time.

Further, when the ISRP consider the development proposals by Dr. Welch, we proposed supporting a prototype or "proof of principle" scale program initially, followed by expansion if successful. In the development of this large-scale program that clearly has analogies, we request these researchers to consider a smaller scale demonstration project when the tag and detection systems are "developed". The second year of the current proposal requests over $6 million, which we consider an unreasonable risk without adequate proof of performance.

Action Agency/NMFS RME Group Comments: OCEAN AND ESTUARY SUBGROUP -- Action items addressed - 193; 195; 197. This project is complementary to the KinTama Proposal 30007, submitted under the Estuary Province. The tag being developed by NMFS is an important addition to the work completed under the KinTama innovative project. The smaller tags will fill a data need for NMFS' estuary/plume work, and as they are further developed, may be used for longer term studies on the shelf. The KinTama acoustic array feasibility study was funded as the ISRP's top ranked Innovative Project in 2000 and is now complete. An appropriate scaled back deployment involving both contractors might include the estuary and plume and an array covering the shelf at the northern end of Vancouver Island. There is also a need to coordinate with studies funded by Portland District of the Corps.

ISRP Remarks on RME Group Comments:

The ISRP generally agrees with the BPA RME comments for this proposal. A collaboration between Dr. Welch (Kintama Research) and these authors may lead to useful developments in receiver arrays and methods for retrieving data from these arrays.

Kintama Proposal Submitted in the Estuary Province: 30007
An Acoustic Tracking Array for Studying Ocean Survival and Movements of Columbia River Salmon
Sponsor: Kintama Research Corporation
Province and Subbasin: Columbia Estuary
FY03 Request: $2,930,535
5YR Estimate: $7,345,735
Short Description: Development of a skeleton acoustic array to demonstrate an approach to tracking movements of individual fish through the river and along the West Coast of North America. The project will initially be focused on salmon, but has much wider application.
ISRP Final Recommendation: Fundable in Part
CBFWA Category: Do Not Fund
ISRP Comparison with CBFWA: Disagree - Fundable in Part

ISRP Final Review Comments:

Fundable but at a reduced level of support, disagree with CBFWA. Development of the final design for the acoustic arrays is high priority. This is an innovative but expensive research project but could provide new and important insights into the early sea-life of salmonids and their use of the ocean environment. However, as we have noted in previous reviews, the funding for proposals in this province will be very competitive. The ISRP suggests though that it would be a reasonable process to discuss the final array design with the proponents and to develop an incremental budget over the next few years.

This proposal continues to be technically innovative and the investigators have essentially completed the Innovative Project (#200008000) tasks. These results are presented and relevance to the FWP is well described. The purpose of this proposal is "to expand research on the acoustic tag and develop a prototype array which will allow demonstrating the capabilities of the technology to establish both river and ocean movements of chinook salmon (page 5)." The author states that the basic technology is now commercially available and the efficiency of its components has been tested. However, he does also note that, "the logistics of deploying the equipment and gathering the data from fish tagged at various locations will require extensive effort over a wide geographic area. Deployment of equipment in the ocean will require significant R&D design effort (in particular, we intend to place the entire array sub-surface so that surface floats vulnerable to vessel traffic, fishing activities, and "curious" individuals are eliminated). Designs have been developed and partially field-tested for deploying the equipment on a semi-permanent basis to withstand the severe conditions that may be encountered at various sampling sites."

The importance of this technology is that it provides a means to actually measure migration rates (not necessarily migration paths, they will be inferred between two points), residency time in an area (e.g., within the Columbia River plume), and mortality rates.

In general, fairly comprehensive responses were provided for most of the ISRP concerns. The author noted that he will comply with the requirements of the Innovative proposal and that the work was now complete. He noted that there do remain issues with the deployment of the acoustic detection arrays but also noted the recent success of deployments in the Atlantic Ocean. There was an additional discussion concerning an interaction with the NMFS Plume project to assist in the assessment of residence times and mortality rates. However, this would be an additional task that was not included in the Plume response and is not relevant for our consideration. The major issue of concern is how to scale the development of these acoustic arrays. The authors have proposed a deployment plan and argued that a critical mass of receivers are required and that the preferred strategy is multiple array lines (compared to fewer lines with more receivers per line). The authors provide adequate justification for this strategy but a minimum number of line arrays were not specified (although a proposed number was suggested).

The ISRP concerns regarding dedicated time of the investigators were addressed and the PI suggested that if the project was supported that he would likely request a three-year leave from his current position. The other budget issue noted was that an allowance for 20% loss of the receivers per year was added to the annual budgets. The budget was re-profiled over time but, in total, it increased.

A remaining limitation of these studies is the size of the acoustic tag. The tag may be suitable for juvenile spring chinook and steelhead (and likely coho), but not for smaller juvenile salmonids. While this may be a limitation for some in-river studies or plume studies for fall Chinook, it is not likely a reason to delay testing of the receiver arrays that can be tested with the larger tag.

Comment:

Comment:

The overall objectives of this proposal are to determine plume residence times of ocean and stream type salmon, characterize fine-scale spatial use of the plume by these two types, and integrate results with the companion project (the NMFS Plume study, project #199801400) to build a biophysical model relating Columbia River plume conditions to the growth, distribution and survival of juvenile salmonids.

This proposal would complete development of micro-acoustic tag methodology and assess residence of salmonids in the Columbia River plume by deployment of fixed and mobile receiver arrays. The approach taken by the project will be to characterize the acoustic environment of the plume, model signal propagation (to adjust for noise in the plume environment), design the detection system, set tag criteria and design, conduct prototype tests, then proceed to full-scale monitoring. Risks identified by the proponents are the difficulties of obtaining adequate sample sizes, the fixed array design, cost, and limited detection range due to phase shift encoding. Ultimately, the goal of the project is to answer the critical uncertainty about temporal and spatial use of the plume habitat by juvenile salmon (see past ISRP comments on NMFS project 199801400). The project will compare the residence times of different life history types (stream and ocean) of chinook salmon, timing of outmigration (early versus late), size and age, to determine how they vary by season. It also proposes to assess the nature of juvenile distribution within the plume.

The technical background is well written and complete. The rationale for the importance of understanding juvenile use and survival in the plume is clearly significant to regional programs (as evidence by the comments to proposal 35025 above). The tasks and methods are described in appropriate detail and a very strong development and research team has been organized. The ISRP wishes to compliment these investigators for their substantial progress on the micro-tag to date. This tag may now offer a real opportunity to study salmonid residency and use of the Columbia River estuary and plume.

However, in the preliminary ISRP report, we requested a response to two major concerns with the receiver arrays. First, the development of the fixed and mobile arrays apparently doubles the costs for this portion of the work. Secondly, we are familiar with the work of Dr. David Welch (CDFO, Pacific Biological Station, project proposal #30007, Estuary province), and BPA has previously supported his research. Dr. Welch has put a substantial investment of time into designing fixed arrays, their deployment, and how to retrieve the data received. Since this must be a very small group of researchers in this field, we were concerned by the evident lack of collaboration. The response received addressed these questions by proposing a collaboration with Dr. Welch and by phased development of the detection systems.

When the ISRP considered the development proposals by Dr. Welch (in the Estuary provincial review), we proposed supporting a prototype or "proof of principle" scale program initially, followed by expansion if successful. In this response, a 4-line array to address the "proof of principle" concern is proposed by Dr. Welch and the NMFS proponents. Four anchored arrays would be established in 2003 and include one array south of the Columbia River, two off the Washington coast, and one at the north end of Vancouver Island, BC. This is similar to Dr. Welch's proposal to the Estuary province. The collaboration between proposals would be the possible use of the anchored arrays to also hold the 400 kHz detection systems (requires completion of detection system first, not expected before 2004). While the ISRP recognizes the efforts to collaborate, we are not convinced the array locations are adequate to test the detection systems. The arrays are very widely separated and would initially only go out to the 100m contour. We fully understand the interest in testing the existing acoustic tags and their detection in the open ocean, but the primary responsibility of the ISRP is whether the proposed design will provide an adequate test of the arrays. We clearly disagree with comments like ""the fixed array locations selected are sufficient and adequate "exit" stations that can be used to document plume usage and initial shelf oriented behaviors" (point 2, 1st para. John Ferguson letter). The task that NMFS was to address was residence and survival in the plume ... how could 4 lines of fixed arrays over several hundred miles of the coast be "sufficient" to address this? The ISRP does not support funding this collaboration until an acceptable design for a "proof of principle" scale program is presented. This should include what criteria would be recommended for the "proof" and the number of arrays needed to truly test this important issue (expand numbers if necessary but justify).

Concerning the 400 mHz detection arrays, we requested the proponent to consider a phased development plan for the two systems (if both are needed) and provide justification for the choice of array. From the perspective of the ISRP, development of the fixed arrays would seem to best address Regional priorities at this time. The issue of residence time and habitat use for downstream migrating smolts actually begins below Bonneville Dam. Questions about their rate of migration and estuary residence are equally as important to the estuary studies and could also be assessed with this technology. Concerning research in the ocean plume environment, our first priority is to determine the duration of use and overall survival. The detailed micro-habitat use by salmonids clearly addresses mechanisms effecting growth, survival, etc. but are finer scale questions that can be phased in over time. The proponents' response was that they should continue to develop the technology for both systems but that they would only use the fixed anchor arrays initially, and that their development would be phased in over the next three years.

During this development, the ISRP again recommends a smaller scale demonstration project when the tag and detection systems are completed. The full implementation of this proposal could eventually cost millions of dollars a year, which we consider unreasonable risk without adequate proof of performance. The ISRP also notes that a phased project would require annual evaluations.

Comment:

Comments
NMFS proposal. Comment is inappropriate

Already ESA Required?
No

Biop?
Yes

Comment:

Comment:

Comments:
Correct budgets are needed, capital determination, large portions of project involve equipment installation for tracking that appear to be capital. Budget reflects only expense portion.