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1994 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program |
| Council document 94-55 | |
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4.3 Rebuilding Targets, Performance Standards and Monitoring
4.3A Snake River Chinook Rebuilding Elements
The Council has introduced the program framework to structure and focus program measures. Work on the framework elements as well as coordinated development and refinement of analytical tools will continue. These tools will help analyze additional actions and, equally important, help identify information needs. This will help the Council establish new program biological goals, measures and performance standards and review those that already exist. Key purposes of further analytical development and Council action are to establish clear links between rebuilding targets and performance standards and measures needed to accomplish the targets and to clarify the relationship between flow, river velocity and survival.
A major part of the framework is the rebuilding plans for each Snake River chinook population. Because of pending decisions on regional initiatives, the Council is unable at this time to establish all the elements of rebuilding plans. These decisions should be made as rapidly as feasible. The Council calls on participants in the implementation process to work with the Council to develop recommendations for the rebuilding plans in time to contribute to the process of deciding on these regional initiatives. After the decisions are made, the Council will adopt rebuilding plans for identified Snake River chinook populations. These will include rebuilding targets and schedules. This process is not intended to substitute for expeditious action on the rebuilding measures already adopted in these amendments.
The Council sets rebuilding targets for wild and naturally spawning Snake River salmon populations above Lower Granite Dam as follows: annual averages of 50,000 adult spring chinook, 20,000 adult summer chinook and 1,000 adult fall chinook. These represent ambitious targets, but targets the Council believes are achievable in the long term. Relative to the estimated 1991 returns of wild and naturally spawning fish, they will require more than an order of magnitude increase in numbers. Although the targets call for a strong recovery from the current situation, they will not restore these populations to their condition prior to development of the basin's hydroelectric system. The key component for achieving this rebuilding target is increasing the percent of smolts that survive to return as adults. Survival improvements of this magnitude will require aggressive implementation of all measures in the program.
Rebuilding targets do not quantify any party's obligation under the Northwest Power Act. Rebuilding targets represent the Council's judgment of ambitious, interim population sizes that achieve the Council's goal and can be achieved by carrying out the mix of measures called for in this program. The feasibility of achieving these targets with measures in the program was checked using the best analytical computer models available.
The Council supports rebuilding Snake River salmon populations to productive, fishable levels as rapidly as possible within program goals. The Council recognizes that immediate measures are not enough to achieve an adequate level of rebuilding or the management goals of the State of Idaho and will continue to seek greater rebuilding.
Implementing Agencies and Fishery Managers
4.3A.1 Working with the Council, begin to develop rebuilding plans for identified population management units. The plans should include the elements of a rebuilding plan identified in Section 4.0, including definition of the population management unit, management goal, rebuilding target, survival targets, rebuilding schedule and performance standards. The Council views this as a limited effort that should draw on the information developed in system planning, new information developed since then (including information on genetic needs and weak stocks) and the coordinated analytical methods process (Section 3.2F). As much as possible, rebuilding plans should reflect and incorporate the subbasin plans developed as part of the 1987 program. A schedule and work plan for development of the rebuilding plans should be submitted to the Council by June 30, 1995. Recommendations on the rebuilding plans for Snake River populations should be submitted to the Council by September 1, 1995. Recommendations for other populations should be submitted to the Council as soon as possible and not later than January 15, 1996.
Bonneville
4.3A.2 Fund travel and reasonable expenses of the fishery managers necessary to develop these recommendations.
4.3B Development of Performance Standards
The effectiveness of actions is often uncertain and depends on other actions. It will be important for the Council and the region to track measures in a timely manner. Performance standards for each action or set of actions should provide an easily measurable index that relates to the type of biological or physical change intended. Performance standards are intended to provide a point of reference against which to monitor change and units of measure to define change. They are not intended to state or limit obligations or to resolve technical uncertainties.
Performance standards will take a variety of forms. In some cases, they will specify changes in survival when these are measurable; in others, they may relate to physical or qualitative changes, or to accomplishing certain tasks within certain time frames. However, it is the Council's intention that performance standards relate to actual biological results (e.g., improvements in survival) whenever feasible, and not just to factors that relate inferentially to biological change.
At the same time, performance standards must be measurable on a timely basis and relate directly to the biological change intended by the measure. Performance standards should be linked to the rebuilding schedules and survival targets, and reflect changes needed to meet the biological objectives. They are not intended to be rigid and inflexible, but should respond to new knowledge. As information improves, better performance standards may become apparent.
Implementing Agencies and Fishery Managers
4.3B.1 Solicit input from the following groups to develop additional performance standards: Fish Passage Advisory Committee, Fish Transportation Oversight Team, Integrated Hatchery Operations Team, Regional Assessment of Supplementation Project and the Technical Advisory Committee of the Columbia River Compact.
Recommendations for additional performance standards for individual measures or logical groupings of measures should be developed through the implementation process. Participants in the process should solicit input from other appropriate groups or individuals. Each group should review program measures appropriate to its area of expertise and provide recommendations for performance standards. A final list of recommendations should be submitted to the Council by July 1, 1995. Performance standards should reflect program measures and survival targets. The Council will review and act on these recommendations to provide a final set of performance standards.
4.3C Population Monitoring
While dam counts of salmon will provide important, timely information on progress toward rebuilding runs, they combine several possibly diverse populations of spring, summer and fall chinook above Lower Granite. In so doing, important information about the status of these individual populations can be lost. At the same time, it may be prohibitive, both in terms of money and effort, to closely monitor every potentially distinct portion of this larger population. Monitoring activities themselves also have the potential for causing salmon losses within weak populations.
For these reasons, the Council intends to establish a limited number of indicator populations that will be the focus of intensive monitoring. The genetic stock identification project described in Section 8.4 may indicate that revision of these indicator populations is needed in the future. The purpose of indicator population monitoring is not only to provide detailed stock status information on these particular populations, but also to provide basic life history and survival information that will be applicable to all populations within the larger population. This will provide the Council with a clearer picture of the factors limiting natural populations and permit refinement of the program over time.
Fishery Managers
4.3C.1 Develop and submit to the Council:
- A limited set of populations that can serve as indicators of wild and naturally spawning salmon populations. These can include hatchery stocks if necessary to provide harvest rates for wild and naturally spawning populations. The indicator stocks selection should be closely coordinated with and take advantage of existing monitoring and research efforts, including actions conducted under the U.S./Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty. The proposal should be submitted to the Council by December 31, 1995.
- A proposal for a coordinated program to monitor key indicator populations of wild and naturally spawning populations of salmon. Hatchery populations should be included when they can form appropriate indices of harvest, for example, on wild and naturally occurring populations. This monitoring program should conform to data needs and reporting formats developed through the coordinated information system.
- A proposal to develop needed technology for monitoring of wild and naturally spawning populations and efficient and timely transfer of information to the coordinated information system. This should include development of Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tag detectors to monitor juvenile and adult populations and mobile counting weirs.
- A proposal for the use of video counting technology for population monitoring at mainstem dams and at tributary dams and weirs.
Council
4.3C.2 Facilitate the development of the above monitoring elements. Council staff should review the proposals as they are developed and make recommendations to the Council regarding their value to the program monitoring effort. The Council will review the proposals and give appropriate direction to the implementing agencies regarding their development.