March 2001 issue

 NWCouncil.org NeWs    March 2001 index

Council sets aside money for innovative fish and wildlife projects and high-priority actions for ESA-listed fish

For the first time, the Northwest Power Planning Council has selected a group of fish and wildlife research projects specifically for their innovation. The Council recommended the research projects in February for funding by the Bonneville Power Administration in 2001. The projects are part of the Council's Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program.

The innovative projects, which resulted from a Council solicitation last November, respond to a recommendation of the Independent Scientific Review Panel (ISRP) in 1999. The ISRP, which reviews all projects proposed for funding through the Council's program, suggested the Council establish a special funding category for innovative projects as a means of exploring new methods and technologies and new applications for existing methods and technologies designed to directly benefit fish and wildlife.

The Council defines an innovative project as one that relies primarily on a method or technology that either has not been used previously in a fish and wildlife project in the Pacific Northwest, or has not been used previously in fish and wildlife mitigation effort.

Beginning this year, Bonneville will allocate up to $2 million per year for innovative projects. The Council's November 2000 solicitation set a per-project funding maximum of $400,000. Without excluding other types of innovative projects, the solicitation expressed an interest in projects demonstrating the effect of nutrient supplementation on fish populations and projects testing experimental selective fishing gear - gear that allows fish of a certain size to escape capture. Selective gear can be used to target larger, more abundant salmon and allow smaller fish to escape.

The solicitation garnered a total of 66 proposals. These requested a total of $20 million, or ten times the amount set aside by Bonneville. The proposals fell into seven broad topic areas: 1) nutrient supplementation; 2) fish health; 3) fish population monitoring; 4) information transfer/planning; 5) artificial production; 6) habitat restoration and enhancement; and 7) fisheries technology.

The project proposals were forwarded to the ISRP and the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority (CBFWA) for review. In February, after reviewing reports provided by the ISRP and CBFWA, the Council recommended nine projects to Bonneville totaling $1,994,109. More information about the projects is available through the Project Finder tool at CBFWA's website.

Meanwhile, the Council also solicited a separate group of projects that would be designated as high priority and funded immediately. Unlike innovative projects, which will be solicited annually, high-priority projects were solicited only for funding in 2000. This responds to the urgency surrounding efforts to recover Endangered Species Act-listed fish.

High-priority projects will be implemented outside the normal project selection process, which is in transition in 2001 from the previous version of the program to the new 2000 Program, which focuses project selection on subbasin planning. Until this year, the Council solicited projects annually for implementation throughout the Columbia River Basin. Beginning this year, the Council moves to a three-year funding cycle in which approximately one-third of the tributary subbasins in the Columbia River Basin will be reviewed each year.

As with the solicitation for innovative projects, the Council set certain guidelines for the high-priority projects. For example, high-priority funding will not be provided for infrastructure or to build capacity - at a hatchery, for example, as these are activities that would require separate follow-on funding in future years. On the other hand, high-priority projects could continue in future years if they are reviewed and approved through the three-year review process.

High-priority projects also must:

• Address imminent risks to the survival of one or more ESA-listed fish species, and 1) represent a time-limited opportunity or 2) be broadly recognized as projects that would achieve direct anadromous fish benefits.
• Be consistent with the Northwest Power Act, provide appropriate mitigation for the impacts of the Columbia River hydrosystem and not be in lieu of other expenditures or actions authorized or required by other entities.
• Have all required permits and agreements in place so that on-the-ground work can begin no later than September 30, 2001.

In response to the solicitation for projects, Bonneville received 96 proposals that offered actions ranging from replacing culverts to acquiring riparian habitat to testing selective fishing gear.

The ISRP reviewed the 96 project proposals and reported to the Council in early February. According to the ISRP report, about half the proposals failed to meet the criteria because they did not offer immediate actions that would result in on-the-ground benefits. Rather, they proposed to create infrastructure, conduct assessments or identify actions that could lead to on-the-ground benefits at a later time.

The proposals also were required to address two additional tiers of criteria. Six Tier 2 criteria were generated from the Fish and Wildlife Program. These included:

• The proposal has measurable, quantitative biological objectives and will result in clear benefits to species survival;
• The proposal has immediate, measurable benefits to ESA-listed species;
• The proposal will produce largely self-sustaining habitat after activities are completed;
• The proposal will connect patches of high-quality habitat or extend habitat out from a core area;
• The proposal will improve conditions in a 303d water-quality limited stream; and/or,
• The proposal addresses a habitat enforcement issue and results in the protection of fish or wildlife habitat (including marine habitats of anadromous species).

The Tier 2 criteria proved critical in the ISRP's identification of technically sound projects that best meet the intent of the high priority solicitation. In general, projects that proposed to directly address passage issues, restore or acquire quality habitat and increase and protect instream flows matched the high-priority criteria the best, the ISRP reported. Proposals to conduct assessments or feasibility studies met the criteria as well. The ISRP made its recommendations in categories - those that clearly met all the criteria, and then three additional categories of projects that met some, but not all of the criteria, and a category for those that did not meet the criteria.

Based on the ISRP review, and reviews by Bonneville and the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Council in March recommended 17 projects totalling $19.3 million to Bonneville for funding.