In response to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s February 19, 2014 request, the ISRP reviewed a revised proposal from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation for Project #2000-031-00, Enhance Habitat in the North Fork John Day River. This project’s purpose is to protect, enhance, and restore functional floodplain, channel, and watershed processes to provide sustainable and healthy habitat and water quality for aquatic species in the John Day River subbasin. The revised proposal is intended to address the Council’s recommendation and the ISRP’s qualifications from the Geographic Review (ISRP 2013-11; August 15, 2013).
In its previous review the ISRP commented, “There are potentially many good aspects to the proposal, but the proposal’s narrative and the responses to several of the ISRP’s qualifications are unclear. The main qualifications are that the sponsors need to better explain the proposal rationale and to enlist the collaboration of specialists to aid in project implementation and evaluation. It is also important that relevant RM&E efforts outside this project are well coordinated with project activities listed in this proposal. More specifically, the sponsors need to address several issues that arose from their responses to the ISRP’s questions on the original proposal.” Responses were requested for nine specific issues.
The ISRP finds that the revised proposal Meets Scientific Review Criteria (Qualified), with the qualification that a strategic framework is needed by the end of 2014 as a means to guide the next steps in this restoration project. For review details, see the full ISRP memo.
