The ISRP has reviewed several iterations of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation Fish Accord Proposal: Deschutes River Restoration Program, #2008-301-00. This December 2010 version of the proposal was revised in response to the Council’s January 13, 2010 decision memo and the ISRP’s December 1, 2009 review (ISRP 2009-49). See the Council’s decision memo for a detailed description of the reviews to date.
The proposal describes a program intended to focus on projects aimed at improving instream habitat along with holistic watershed restoration directed at factors limiting salmonid production. Projects will target four broad limiting factors including habitat complexity and quantity, fine sediment, waters temperature, and altered hydrology.
The ISRP finds that the proposal does not meet scientific review criteria.
The limiting factors to be addressed were clearly linked to the Deschutes subbasin plan and the Mid-Columbia steelhead recovery plan. The streams chosen for restoration were identified in both the subbasin plan and recovery plan. There were some quantitative objectives for environmental attributes identified such as fine sediments and large woody debris in some locations; however, the linkage of those habitat targets to biological objectives for fish was lacking.
Previous ISRP reviews of this project noted the lack of technical detail in the proposal describing restoration projects that would be implemented by this project. The evidence that the habitat conditions being addressed by this proposal are in poor condition was generally supported in this revised proposal. However, reasons for selecting specific locations were not adequately explained. The proponents did not adequately respond to the five points raised by the ISRP and mentioned in the Council letter.
