At the Council’s August 16 request, the ISRP reviewed the Shoshone Bannock Tribes’ revised proposal and a response to the ISRP’s preliminary review for the project, ESA Habitat Restoration Project (#2008-903-00). This new Columbia Fish Accord proposal is intended to "inventory, assess, plan, and implement necessary actions to ameliorate the effects of hydromodification, reduce sediment delivery, restore riparian function, improve stream temperatures, and improve passage for all life stages of anadromous and resident fish in priority areas of the Salmon River Subbasin."
The ISRP’s preliminary review (ISRP 2010-25) was released on July 22, 2010. Although the ISRP found the proposal to be a good start, the ISRP requested a response on a number of issues. The Shoshone Bannock Tribes submitted a response addressing the issues.
Recommendation: Meets Scientific Review Criteria (Qualified)
Much effort was expended to incorporate reviewer comments and the revised proposal addresses most of the ISRP’s initial concerns. However, details describing how the restoration actions would address specific limiting factors at each of the seven priority sites, and quantitative projections of the benefits of the actions on target species (see Table 6) are still somewhat incomplete. Simply making statements like "rearing capacity will be increased" and "temperature will be lowered" is not adequate.
Qualification: Regarding Objectives 1 and 2 to inventory and assess potential actions, the ISRP recommends that the proposers incorporate a comparison of costs to the projected benefits to fish for the actions to assist in priority setting. This would supplement the useful summary of anticipated benefits in Table 5, while assuring that habitat improvements are likely to be cost-effective. The ISRP can look at the finalized priority list and supporting analysis in future project reviews, likely as a component of a Salmon River subbasin geographic review.
