Local or MSRT Comments: OSPT recommends a reduction of 5K from FY07 proposed for expected decrease in indirect rate. Flatline out years to FY07.

The Umatilla ecosystem and the human intervention within it remains complex, and the ability to comprehend the interactions of habitat work, as proposed, and flow augmentation, power repay, adult and smolt migration, etc. remains confusing. One concludes that it is adult and smolt migration within the Umatilla as the key limiting factor (particularly, in this case, from Birch Creek to the Three Mile Falls Dam site). Nonetheless, habitat husbandry is a requirement, and the response has clarified several areas of the proposal.

There remains the need to develop an adaptive management experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of habitat improvement techniques, ultimately to the smolt yield stage. ISRP has recommended to Council that some assistance to subbasins may be required to standardize and establish this process within the basin, and we remain hopeful that Umatilla projects will form part of that exercise. Success should be measured in terms of increased smolt production in the system. Sponsors should by now be able to defend their work on the basis of similar treatments by others or results of their own. Absent these results there is no scientific basis for continuing the work. They incorrectly reject the idea that smolt production is the best measure of habitat productivity for anadromous fish. They seem to believe that EDT is the final answer to habitat quality and not merely a basis from which to develop a testable hypothesis. There has been no test of such hypotheses and therefore no basis in science to support continuation of these projects.

This project and others like it are individual parts of what the Council has referred to as the “Umatilla Initiative.” As such, none of them is a stand-alone project that can be subjected to scientific peer review on its own merits, but the projects need to be reviewed in the larger context of a plan for restoration of anadromous fishes in the Umatilla Basin. The ISRP’s recommendation of “Not Fundable (Qualified)” for the set of projects that constitute the Umatilla Initiative is explained under project 198343600, Umatilla Passage O&M.

Given results to date (declining survival rates), the sponsors need to provide convincing evidence that the project is providing enough fishery/ecosystem benefit that it is worth continuing. The text does reflect considerable study and thought by the participants regarding the need for restoration of dynamic stream processes. Actions should be limited to fencing, overcoming passage problems, restoration of the original hydrograph, and reduction of human-induced fine sediment introduction. Choice of activities should be limited to locations where there is high probability for regaining significant productivity for salmonids, and this must be clearly demonstrated by priority. After just under 20 years of work, i.e., since 1987, reviewers note that no results are presented. Furthermore, there is no clear identification of the key high priority habitat work as identified in the subbasin plan, nor demonstration of some benefit to fish.

Given alteration of stream characteristics in the Umatilla Basin, it is logical to assume that productivity of the system for salmonids is less than it once was. This project puts together actions and agreements in an attempt to recover some of that lost productivity. The approach, however, is always subject to questions regarding whether or not the "right" thing is being done from the perspective of the fish. The results of this work as found and described in project 198902401 show declining survival from egg to smolt over the past decade (Figs. 3-5). In light of these results, the sponsors of this work need to provide a convincing case for continuing this work as presently outlined.

The comments on 198710001 also apply here.