Section 2
Chehalis
Basin Salmon Habitat Restoration and Preservation Work
Plan
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SRF Board Habitat Projects and Activities Strategies for Developing Projects |
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Statewide Vision for Salmon Recovery: “Restore salmon, steelhead, and trout populations to healthy and harvestable levels and improve habitat on which fish rely.”
Wild stocks are fish sustained by natural spawning and rearing in the natural habitat, regardless of parentage (including native).
An estuary is an area where fresh and salt water mix at the mouth of a river.
Habitat access is the unobstructed upstream and downstream movement of fish at all life stages
Hydrology includes several components of the natural flow regime of streams and rive, that includes: · Volume – the amount of surface flow; · Frequency – how often a flow above a given magnitude recurs; · Duration – the period of time a specific flow condition persists; · Timing – the regularity or consistency of specific flow conditions; and · Rate of change – how quickly amount of flow increases or decreases. All of the components are important to the ecological integrity of rivers, streams, adjacent floodplains, & estuaries.
Floodplains are the low areas along a stream or river channel into which water spreads during floods. Off-channel habitat includes ponds, oxbows, sloughs, and other backwater areas with cover that provide high-quality rearing habitat for juvenile salmonids.
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Although bull trout are the only salmonid listed as “threatened” in the Chehalis Basin, this is not a clean bill of health for WRIAs 22 and 23 by any means. The limiting factors analysis by Smith and Wenger point out that human activity in the watershed has degraded or eliminated aquatic habitats by altering many of the key natural stream processes that support salmonids (p. 26). On the other hand, salmonids in the Chehalis Basin have fared far better than in Puget Sound, the Columbia River, and Hood Canal. Comparatively, habitat in the Chehalis Basin is much more intact and has fewer development pressures. For this reason, the Chehalis Basin could play an important role in the long-term success of preserving healthy populations of wild salmonids for the state as a whole. The significance of this fact makes the Chehalis Basin watershed a good investment for the SRF Board. They can fund projects and activities here that would have far greater impact in fulfilling the overall statewide vision for salmon recovery not possible in many other WRIAs. To this end, the Work Plan adopts seven strategies, all equal in value, for addressing the most pressing limiting factors identified within the sub-basins of WRIAs 22 and 23. Salmon habitat projects and activities must meet one or more of these strategies for inclusion on the Habitat Project List for SRF Board consideration. These guiding strategies are:
The future for salmon, steelhead, and bull trout in WRIAs 22 and 23 depends on self-sustaining populations of wild stocks. First efforts in this direction will primarily focus on restoration and preservation actions within the most potentially productive sub-basins for wild salmonids. These sub-basins have the highest number of anadromous fish stocks and the greatest number of fish miles. It is also important to begin filling the many data gaps to understand how limiting factors impair our achieving healthy populations of wild fish.
Wild salmonids in the Chehalis Basin depend upon the Grays Harbor Estuary for food, rearing, and migration habitat. It is the gathering point for these fish at the beginning and end of their life cycles. As the health of the Grays Harbor Estuary goes, so does that of wild salmonids. The condition of the estuary today is indicative of the rest of the Chehalis Basin – a mixture of good and fair, although in far better condition in comparison to other similar habitats in the state. The loss of near shore habitat and degraded water quality are the greatest problems that need work. There is also a great need to develop an estuary management plan that aims at giving greater guidance at what projects are critical for recovery and protection.
Past agricultural and forestry practices as well as urbanization have greatly degraded riparian zones along some of the most productive sub-basins in the Chehalis Basin. The Chehalis Basin Partnership needs to expand the number of projects that assist landowners in reducing the impacts of their livestock to riparian areas. There are also many streams and rivers with degraded riparian areas due to a legacy of poor forestry practices in the past. Restoration of these areas is critical It is equally important to note that the Chehalis Basin still has many functioning riparian areas that deserve protection. That is why it is critical to make available the resources and support necessary to implement the Forest and Fish Agreements in order to protect and preserve these riparian zones.
Existing assessments, incomplete as they are, show that the Chehalis Basin is plagued with numerous culverts on public and private lands that create impassible barriers to wild salmonids. This essentially eliminates access by salmonids to what could be many miles of very prime and pristine habitat. Replacing these dysfunctional culverts is therefore a very high priority. The Chehalis Basin Partnership intends to submit projects for funding that open habitat or provide access to productive spawning grounds. Given the high percentage of publicly owned forestlands in the WRIAs, the Chehalis Basin Partnership intends to encourage and support these entities to replace dysfunctional culverts. The Fish and Forest Agreement should also be a focal point for fixing culverts on private lands The incompleteness of technical assessments documenting the extent of fish barriers in many sub-basins within WRIA 22 and 23 is a major stumbling block to fully and effectively addressing habitat access problems. Therefore, it is a priority to find the necessary resources to have a thorough, basin-wide barrier assessment available as soon as possible.
Years of agriculture, development, and timber management in the Chehalis Basin have negatively affected hydrology in many sub-basins. Ditching, filling, and armoring of stream banks in particular have dramatically created extremes of high flows in the winter and low flows in the summers. These abnormal flow conditions scour spawning grounds, restrict access to rearing habitat, and degrade water quality through sedimentation. Downstream flooding and excessive bank erosion also occurs with greater frequency and affect. Reversing this historic manipulation of streams and rivers landscapes will be important for improving wild salmonid habitat Increased water use by people within the Chehalis Basin has critically reduced summertime flows in some sub-basins. The development of water storage projects that augment stream flows during dry periods is major need for these sub-basins. In addition, the development of a watershed management plan will provide more information to better address this overall concern.
Human modification of stream banks in the Chehalis Basin has seriously affected off-channel habitat for wild salmonids. Levees, dikes, revetments, and roads have disconnected valuable floodplains, off-channel habitat, wetlands, and sloughs for fish. This has drastically affected how rivers function by eliminating areas for water storage for floodwaters and summer flows as well as mechanisms for sedimentation control and incision. For the fish, it is a serious loss of habitat for feeding, spawning, rearing, and refuge from floodwaters. Salmon habitat projects that restore floodplain functions in sub-basins are a major priority. The long-term goal is to remove all levees and fortified structures along rivers to allow fish and rivers to historic floodplains. This need is so great that the Chehalis Basin Partnership would like to see at least one major floodplain restoration project proposed annually. In the short-term, large woody debris projects are important to implement throughout all sub-basins.
Making choices about prioritizing sub-basins within WRIAs 22 and 23 is an unfortunate necessity. The Chehalis Basin watershed is the second largest in the state and has many restoration and preservation needs. However, the funding resources available through the SRF Board are insufficient to cover the needs of every sub-basin within the two WRIAs. The concern rightly exists that spreading these limited resources too thinly across the watershed would render little impact on improving overall salmonid runs in the watershed. Therefore, the Work Plan follows the strategy of focusing SRF Board funding on habitat projects and activities in those sub-basins that have the highest potential for yielding the greatest number and diversity of salmonids. The basis of the Work Plan prioritization strategy is a ranking of each sub-basin given their number of wild salmonid stocks and potential for producing the greatest quantity of fish given the habitat currently available. The outcome of the prioritization process is a ranking of sub-basins into “high,” “medium,” and “low” priorities. The prioritization of these sub-basins follows below. High Priority Sub-basins Medium Priority Sub-basins Low Priority Sub-basins
Furthermore, this strategy also provides a second layer of project development guidance for individual sub-basins. Each sub-basin has a matrix that recommends general projects and technical assessments that reflect the limiting factors analysis. The matrix for each WRIA 22 and 23 sub-basins is accessible by clicking the sub-basin name in the high, medium, and low sub-basin list. Each sub-basin matrix also has a link to a informational fact sheet and maps. Appendix A summarizes the process used in the development of this strategy and the matrixes.
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