2010 FCRPS BiOp implementation

The 2010-2013 FCRPS BiOp Implementation Plan outlines a comprehensive program of habitat improvements, hatchery reforms and hydrosystem operations and improvements to protect Columbia and Snake river fish.

The document describes how the action agencies will boost survival of Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act. 

Fish passage and operational improvements at the dams remain a foundation of the agencies’ actions for listed fish. For years, the agencies have spilled water at all eight lower Snake and Columbia dams during the fish passage season to help juvenile fish move more quickly and easily past the dams.  Beginning in 2005, they extended spill through the end of August at Snake River projects.

The plan also outlines a broad array of projects to improve spawning and rearing habitat for listed fish. Some examples (with links to earlier projects) include: 

* Water purchases in central Idaho’s Lemhi watershed will return water to streambeds where Snake River steelhead and Chinook salmon spawn.  They will build on eight recent transactions that permanently increased upstream and downstream passage for the endangered fish. 

* In Oregon’s Grand Ronde watershed, partners will remove diversions and install fish passage structures to improve access to more than 45 miles of streams, and reconnect a half mile of side channel. 

* In the Upper Salmon Basin in Idaho, crews will install fish screens to keep fish out of irrigation canals, boost stream flows and remove diversions that block fish.

* In the Tucannon watershed in southeast Washington, floodplains will be reconnected and large woody debris added to streams in increase the habitat diversity.

* In the Columbia River estuary, more than 12 acres of saltwater wetlands will be opened up to tidal influence, restoring critical nursery areas for young fish on their way to the sea.  Over time, up to 96 acres of this important fish habitat could be restored.

Last year alone, the agencies protected 9,609 miles of wetland habitat and reopened 244 miles of streams to fish.  State biologists counted 69 Chinook salmon “redds,” or nests, in 2009 after year-round flow was restored to previously dry sections of the tributaries of Idaho’s Pahsimeroi River.