Final Council recommendation (Nov 2006)

Funding category: Expense

Recommended budgets: FY07: $0 | FY08: $0 | FY09: $0

Comment:

ISRP final recommendation: Not fundable

Comment:

This proposal does not adequately justify the actions proposed in terms of specific benefits to fish and wildlife and description of methods and, thus, does not meet the ISRP review criteria. This proposal could have made a stronger case for replacing the culverts in question if it summarized what species would benefit from the passage improvements for each watershed, and estimated how many miles of stream would potentially be made available after road crossings were fixed. This work would replace 43 culverts in the Wenatchee subbasin. Only one of those culverts - Mill Creek in the Peshastin watershed - is described. The Mill Creek culvert is located near the mouth of the stream and is claimed to block steelhead spawning migrations and possibly other anadromous or adfluvial salmonids, although steelhead is the only species apart from westslope cutthroat that occurs in Mill Creek according to the distribution maps supplied with the proposal. No details about the other 42 culverts are given, however the map in attachment B shows they are located in clusters on Derby, Brender, Ruby, and East Fork Mission Creeks. This proposal should have provided information about habitat conditions upstream from the fish barriers in these streams so that replacing the problem culverts would be better justified. The proposal should have also described what structures will replace the culverts and how fish passage at all life history stages will be assured. Will modular bridges be used, bottomless arch culverts, low-water crossings (crossings that are inundated at high flow), or other types of road crossing structures? The narrative says that the Upper Columbia River Regional Technical Team's prioritization scheme will influence the order of repairing the crossings, but details are not provided. If some streams have a higher priority for passage improvements than others, the rationale should be given. It is unlikely that Level 1 monitoring will reveal whether the fish passage improvements achieve their desired objective unless actual stream surveys are carried out post-replacement.

Response loop edit

See the sponsor's revised proposal from the response loop. You'll be taken to CBFWA's proposal system in Section 10 where most sponsors uploaded revised narratives or other responses to the ISRP comments.

State/province recommendation: Washington

Review group: Washington list

Recommended budgets: FY07: (n/a) | FY08: (n/a) | FY09: (n/a)

Comment: See Washington guidance