FY12 Nooksack Salmon Recovery Project Planning

Nooksack Tribe Habitat Program staff advanced planning, design, and permitting of high priority chinook habitat restoration projects in the North and South Forks of the Nooksack River. Projects address key limiting factors in priority geographic areas, including loss of channel structure and complexity, lack of holding pools, high temperatures, degraded riparian areas, and disconnected floodplains in the South Fork, and loss of channel structure and complexity, low habitat diversity, and high channel instability in the North and Middle Forks. Staff worked closely through the Salmon Recovery Staff Team, other private, regional, state, and federal salmon recovery partners to coordinate projects, apply best practices, and share lessons learned. Specific projects that were advanced due to this projects percurser (planning & coordination) work included:
• NF Nooksack Farmhouse Reach Phase 1 Restoration, which entailed construction of 27 engineered log jams in the North Fork Nooksack River (RM 48.5) during summer 2014.
• SF Nooksack Downstream of Hutchinson Phase 2 Restoration, which entailed construction of 10 engineered log jams in the South Fork Nooksack River (RM 9.7) during summer 2014.
• SF Nooksack Nesset Reach Restoration, Phase 1 (22 engineered log jams, RM 11.6-11.9) of which we anticipate constructing in summer 2016, contingent upon procuring sufficient funding.
• SF Nooksack Black Slough Reach Restoration, Phase 1 of which we anticipate constructing in summer 2016, contingent upon securing landowner willingness.
• SF Nooksack Van Zandt Reach Phase 2 Restoration, which entailed repair during fall 2013 of a structure built in 2010 (SF RM 1.3) which had been destabilized by bank erosion.

The project also funded engineering and design services for the SF Nooksack Van Zandt Reach Phase 2 Restoration project. Specifically, project funded an engineer from Herrera Environmental Consultants to provide on-site field direction during fall 2013 for repair of a structure originally built in 2010. Engineer also reviewed and approved the South Fork Nooksack In-stream Restoration: Van Zandt Project Project As-Repaired Memorandum.

Staff also engaged in general restoration program planning and management, including preparation of grant proposals, grant administration, program organization, budgets and project scheduling, personnel management, crew coordination, reviewing relevant technical documents, regular staff meetings to review project status and identify needed tasks, and attending and/or engaging in restoration-related training.

3/29/17 Note: There is a little more than a month of overlap between the start date of 13-NOOK-01 (6/21/14) and the end of 12-NOOK-01 (7/31/14). While the grant manager tracks grant expenses in real time, the fringe benefit expenses are estimated, so an exact balance is not available until the expenses post to the general ledger (which can take a few weeks for salary and fringe). Further, indirect posts at the end of each month. While, for projects with identical scope, we effectively spend down the earlier fiscal year before starting on a new fiscal year, the logistics of general ledger management mean that there is often a short period of overlap between the start of the new project and the end of the old one.

The ultimate goal of the WRIA 1 Salmonid Recovery Plan is to restore local salmonid populations to healthy, self-sustaining levels that can sustain treaty harvest. The more immediate goal is to recover the two Nooksack early chinook populations to viable levels; both of these populations are critical to recovery of the Puget Sound Chinook ESU. The Ecosystem Diagnosis and Treatment (EDT) model estimates that implementation of the Near-Term Action Plan will improve abundance (adult equilibrium), productivity (maximum), and diversity index (proportion of historic life history trajectories) of North Fork/Middle Fork Nooksack early chinook (NF/MF) by factors of 4.0, 2.6, and 2.4, respectively. Similarly, EDT estimates that implementation will improve abundance, productivity, and diversity of South Fork Nooksack early chinook (SF) by factors of 8.4, 3.5, and 2.1, respectively. Most of the work of the WRIA 1 Salmon Recovery Staff Team is geared towards restoration of degraded habitat. Projects address limiting factors in priority habitats, including loss of channel structure and complexity, lack of holding pools, high temperatures, degraded riparian areas, and disconnected floodplains in the South Fork, and loss of channel structure and complexity, low habitat diversity, and high channel instability in the North and Middle Forks. This project is necessary to maintain the pace of salmon recovery plan implementation efforts.