[4] ISRP OK's Latest Klickitat Fish Plan
The Independent Scientific Review Panel has given a qualified thumbs-up to an ambitious 10-year, $27-million plan to improve fish stocks in the Klickitat River.
Funding for the plan, which is sponsored by the Yakama Tribes, is pretty much assured as part of the recent fish accord signed by BPA and three lower Columbia tribes. The Yakamas are part of that deal, which swapped hundreds of millions of dollars in fish projects for tribal support of the new hydro BiOp.
The June ISRP review was taken up by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council's F&W committee at last week's meeting in Kalispell, Mont. The project will come before the full council in August for a vote on whether to move it forward to the second step of the three-step Council process for major projects.
The ISRP, which judges the scientific merit of projects proposed for BPA's Fish and Wildlife Program, said the document needs a better explanation of natural and artificial production plans for chinook and steelhead.
The plan calls for getting more native fish past Castile Falls and opening up another 50 miles of spawning and riverine habitat, by boosting spring chinook and steelhead production at an existing hatchery. The hatchery would also provide more fish for harvest. New facilities in the lower river would also produce coho and fall chinook for harvest.
An extensive habitat restoration plan would also be implemented to help improve wild fish numbers.
The plan itself says it will cost $9 million more than the $27 million outlined in the fish accord. The tribe is expected to work with WDFW and ask Congress for Mitchell Act funding to pay for a new hatchery in the lower river designed to produce coho and fall chinook for harvest. Neither coho nor fall chinook are native to the Klickitat.
The panel said one "progressive attribute" of the latest version of the plan includes a "general suite" of habitat improvement strategies for each target species "at a variety of scales and levels of complexity," and "includes some thought and apparent analysis (which is not specifically presented, but should be) about the specific habitat improvement activities planned in the Subbasin and within specific stream reaches."
But the ISRP also said that the plan's estimates of increased productivity and capacity appeared "overly optimistic."
According to the plan, natural escapement of spring chinook has averaged 300 since 1977, and around 700 for steelhead. The long-term--10-year--objectives for the plan are to reach an annual escapement of 700 wild spring chinook and 2,500 for wild steelhead
The science panel still isn't too excited about the large coho and fall chinook releases planned for the lower Klickitat to boost harvest, which they said could have negative effects on spring chinook and steelhead.
"Consequently," the panel said, "the Master Plan does not provide scientific justification for the fall chinook and coho hatchery programs. Rather, the Master Plan justifies these programs based on U.S. v. Oregon obligations."
The ISRP found serious deficiencies in two earlier versions of the Klickitat plan, but much more to praise in the latest one, including the strategy of monitoring steelhead colonization above Castile Falls for nine years before starting any supplementation effort.
A fishway around the falls was completed in the 1960s, but design flaws and poor maintenance kept it from working. From 2003 to 2005, work was completed on the two fishway tunnels within the Castile Falls complex, and it was brought up to NOAA Fisheries' fish passage standards.
Another proposal that is making its way through the EIS process will improve an existing fishway farther downstream at Lyle Falls, which was originally constructed in 1949. -B. R.
The following links were mentioned in this story:
Klickitat River Anadromous Fisheries Master Plan, March 2008
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