Comment on proposed FY 2006 budget

The proposed budget is insufficient to effectively pursue the contracted tasks. This project, the Umatilla Natural Production Monitoring and Evaluation Project (UNPMEP) is responsible for informing scientists, managers, and the public on the status and trends of Umatilla Subbasin salmonids, and for monitoring and evaluating the impacts of management actions on natural production. In 2002 the allotted budget was insufficient to pursue the approved field tasks in conjunction with the required modeling, planning, and reporting requirements of the NPCC restoration program. UNPMEP tabled two important work elements (the assessment of juvenile fish and their habitat, and the monitoring of fall Chinook and coho spawning) to pursue subbasin planning and RM&E planning activities within the constraints of the budget. Since that time the project has experienced a 6% increase in overhead, and a 7% increase in cost of living (www.bls.gov). The Umatilla Subbasin Plan states clearly that the tabled work elements must be reinitiated to ensure adequate project effectiveness monitoring (pages 5-2, and H-1 through H-13). During the 2004 funding request, ISRP reviews, and an April 11, 2005 budget modification request, managers and scientists alike have requested additional funds for the project. As stated in the 2004 Umatilla Subbasin Plan, UNPMEP is well integrated, essential for effective management, and carefully planned scientifically and logistically. We request a budget of 550K for 2006. This level of funding is comparable to similar projects in the basin, and will allow UNPMEP to monitor spawners, stream temperatures, age and growth of all adult and juvenile stocks in the Umatilla, stream habitat conditions, and juvenile cohort composition and seeding densities, while still participating with planners, managers, and policy makers in the processes associated with restoration in the Umatilla Subbasin and Columbia River scientific community.

Accomplishments since the last review

UNPMEP has collected and analyzed extensive data sets describing water temperature conditions, juvenile fish community structure, resident fish population structure, spawner distributions and densities, passage, habitat conditions, age and growth, and tribal harvest. Project staff have studied the presence and potential impacts of hatchery residuals on naturally producing anadromous and resident salmonids, and have advised on the release location and timing of hatchery projects. Staff have assisted in the development and implementation of a variety of critical uncertainty research projects including the delineation of ESA-listed summer Steelhead population structure, and the development of progeny markers for evaluating the success of hatchery programs. In addition project staff support local efforts to monitor and restore endemic bull trout by providing spawner, distribution, age and growth, and movement data to state and federal lead entities. Collectively these data have been utilized in a number of plans and management actions including limiting factors analysis, habitat plans, passage restoration, flow augmentation, and harvest planning. Most recently project staff worked with other regional scientists using CTUIR data to develop, run, and evaluate the Umatilla Subbasin Ecosystem Diagnosis and Treatment model used in the Umatilla Subbasin Plan. That model, and the resulting Management Plan (Chapter 5, SBP), clearly demonstrated the efficacy of this project and the importance of its work. The project used EDT to quantify the potential of the Umatilla Subbasin to produce on average thousands of additional spawners via the restoration of specific habitat attributes in priority reaches. During this same period UNPMEP has documented the status and trends in natural production of anadromous and resident fish. This information has been effectively communicated to managers, and a great deal of the information has been archived and made public via the internet.

FY 2006 goals and anticipated accomplishments

Our primary goal is to provide information to tribal, state and federal fisheries managers by monitoring the status and trends in the abundance, distribution, movement and survival of bull trout, mountain whitefish, redband trout, summer steelhead and spring Chinook salmon during adult migration, spawning, rearing and juvenile migration in the Umatilla River Drainage and evaluate these trends in relation to environmental, ecological, and anthropogenic factors. Other project goals include coordination and cooperation with other restoration and monitoring projects, assisting in fish salvage efforts, and other activities such as technical review, results dissemination, and proposal development when circumstances dictate. In the coming year UNPMEP will continue to monitor stream temperatures, spring Chinook and summer steelhead spawning, resident and anadromous salmonid age and growth, and tribal harvest. We will continue to participate in the various planning, modeling, and management processes associated with the recovery of endangered stocks, and the restoration of salmonids throughout the Umatilla Subbasin. In addition we are requesting a sufficient increase in budget to support activities approved in the provincial review process, but not supported fiscally by BPA during 2004. These include spawner/carcass surveys of fall Chinook and coho, and the assessment of rearing juvenile salmonids and their habitat in priority tributaries where habitat actions are imminent. The fall Chinook and coho data is needed to adequately monitoring the status and trend of fall Chinook spawning, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the fall Chinook hatchery program. The juvenile fish and habitat information is needed to effectively evaluate the impacts of habitat actions on natural production. In addition this increased fiscal support is essential to support juvenile fish salvage activities that result directly in increased productivity and abundance of managed stocks.

Subbasin planning

How is this project consistent with subbasin plans?

The Umatilla Subbasin Plan outlines a number of management actions that will occur in priority tributaries based on the limiting factors analysis derived from the Umatilla Subbasin EDT model. These various habitat actions will occur in concert with a variety of harvest and hatchery actions, and against the back-drop of natural variability in the system. The Umatilla Subbasin Plan states clearly that monitoring and evaluation is the foundation of adaptive management of Umatilla fish and wildlife (pages 5-1 through 5-2). The management plan section outlines the suite of actions that will occur, and the RM&E plan identifies the technical approach to monitoring and evaluating the impacts of those actions on managed stocks. UNPMEP is a fully integrated component of those actions, and of the BPA mitigation program as a whole. The RM&E section of the Umatilla Subbasin Plan, and the more recent Comprehensive Chinook and Steelhead RM&E plan provide details on the integration with the Umatilla Subbasin Plan. Pages 5-4 through 5-6 of the Management Plan chapter of the Subbasin Plan discuss the specific RM&E objectives required to conduct adaptive management of the Umatilla ecosystem’s. Pages H-96 through H-103 of the RM&E section describes connections between specific RM&E objectives, methods, and the life-history phases that are targeted; specifically abundance, productivity, life history diversity, survival, movement, harvest mortality, ecosystem and habitat status. The UNPMEP statement of work is a direct expression of the RM&E requirements described in the subbasin plan. UNPMEP work elements target core management uncertainties required to conduct adaptive management, and have been well integrated with the NPCC Fishery Program, BPA RM&E Plan, NOAA Recovery Planning, and the Umatilla Subbasin Plan. What remains is the fiscal support needed to effectively inform managers within this landscape of increasing management actions and biological complexities.

How do goals match subbasin plan priorities?

The Umatilla Subbasin co-management community has long recognized the importance and utility of an adaptive management approach. The co-management community meets regularly in the context of its Umatilla Management Monitoring and Evaluation Oversight Committee to transfer information between scientists and managers, and to efficiently manage fisheries resources. These activities, and the resultant success of the Umatilla program, would not be possible without sound science. UNPMEP operates within every priority habitat in the subbasin, and is responsible to tribal, county, state, and federal managers for the information it collects. Pages 5-11 through 5-38 of the Umatilla Subbasin Plan describe the priority habitat actions planned for the priority geographic areas, and describes the species and life-history phases these are hypothesized to benefit. UNPMEP is a priority project because its goals and objectives are to test the impacts of the priority management actions on focal species using sound science. The RM&E section of the plan describes the methods by which this will be accomplished. Managers have repeatedly highlighted the priority of scientific information in the development and implementation of their restoration programs, and the UNPMEP has been tailored to the specific management uncertainties that local and regional entities (including NPCC, ISRP, ISAB, and BPA) have identified. The Umatilla Subbasin represents a unique combination of major hindrances to salmonid production, and a unique combination of intensive mitigation actions that have brought the Umatilla forward as a model for collaborative salmonid restoration. UNPMEP is a priority RM&E project in the province due in part to the extensive increases in production it has documented, and the unique restoration program it continues to facilitate.

Other comments

The objectives and tasks described in the 2005 statement of work represent a critical sub-set of information identified by NMFS Interior Columbia Technical Recovery Team, the Columbia Basin System-Wide Monitoring and Evaluation Partnership, the Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring Partnership, and local managers. The core objectives provide life-history specific information regarding the natural production of salmonids. Scientists and mangers use this information to estimate in-stream harvest mortality, spawner abundance, productivity, diversity, distribution, movement/timing, population structure etc.; the core metrics of restoration and recovery. The 2005 funding level does not support spawner/carcass monitoring for fall Chinook or coho, nor does it support the monitoring of rearing juvenile salmonids or their habitat: this even though these activities were approved during the previous provincial review. These data represent critical management uncertainties identified by numerous restoration planning entities including BPA themselves within their system-wide RM&E plan. One ancillary impact of this lack of support is that the project can no-longer afford to staff or maintain a salvage crew to assist locally during anthropogenic or natural stranding events. Collectively these shortfalls are costing BPA and the Umatilla Subbasin in the forms of direct mortality to fish and a lack of information for managers. Given the critical importance of these activities, the preparedness and willingness of UNPMEP to support this work, and the clear connections between planning and action identified in the Umatilla Subbasin Plan and elsewhere, we urge NPCC and BPA to support a funding increase for this project for the 2006 funding cycle. Delaying this increase will only result in a continued loss of production in the Umatilla, and a continued absence of data from critical time-series needed to identify opportunities for increased production in this unique system.