CTUIR Ceded Area Subbasin Priority Natural Resource Acquisitions

The CTUIR Fisheries Program implements a comprehensive, gravel to gravel management effort in the primary watersheds in their aboriginal territories. This includes, passage, artificial supplementation, habitat, harvest and monitoring & evaluation. This project works in conjunction with each of the CTUIR’s Subbasin Anadromous Fish Habitat Projects to identify and seek permanent protection for high value habitats and water rights through fee title acquisition and conservation easements and purchase of grazing and forest management rights to provide watershed conservation benefits. Special emphasis is placed on targeting stronghold habitats of high value and areas of high restoration potential benefiting the productivity of ESA-listed Pacific salmonids, as described in habitat objectives and restoration strategies in the 2004 NPCC Subbasin Plans, and the Mid-C Steelhead and Snake River ESA Recovery Plans. Once protected these resources provide the foundation to enhance physical and ecological processes and leverage other cost share funding.

This proposal includes securing fee title acquisition or conservation easement opportunities for land, water, grazing or timber rights benefiting ESA-listed fish and tribal First Foods. The project applies to the CTUIR ceded area subbasins (Umatilla, Walla Walla, Tucannon, Grande Ronde & John Day) focusing on water, land, and resource acquisitions to protect and/or restore ecological and physical processes important to aquatic Endangered Species Act (ESA)-listed species and other native aquatic species important to CTUIR. Priority stream acquisition and conservation reaches will be selected based largely on past planning (NPCC Subbasin Plans, ESA Recovery Plans, etc) and consistent with the CTUIR River Vision which emphasizes natural floodplain function. Acquisitions are selected based on restoration opportunity or conservation value. This will be determined at the time of site specific selection. The details of each transaction will be determined in the pre-acquisition phase after site specific selection.

The proposed riparian land acquisition of 80 acres near Hamley along the Umatilla River will protect .32 miles of stream.

Projects will be evaluated using the following criteria:

1. Provides significant conservation and/or restoration benefits for sustaining CTUIR First foods;
2. Consistency with subbasin plan priorities, NOAA Recovery Plans, Comprehensive State Wildlife Conservation Strategies, and CTUIR River Vision;
3. Multiple fish species and/or life stage benefits;
4. High degree of defensibility relative to size/configuration of acquisition tract and adjacent threats;
5. Direct enhancement of connectivity between conservation areas; and
6. Enhancement of administrative or logistics associated with management of existing adjacent areas.

All acquisitions will be completed in accordance with the CTUIR Land Acquisition Strategy Plan. The Tribe will acquire land at or below Fair Market Value based on current Federal Yellow Book standard appraisals. Land may be purchased with water rights if the land/water package scores high as per above criteria.

Benefits will be achieved through the protection and restoration of natural physical and ecological processes and resulting habitat and water quality improvements. Impacts from development and resource extraction actions that might degrade aquatic habitats and limit fish production will be eliminated. ESA species: summer steelhead and bull trout; other species: spring Chinook, coho salmon, pacific lamprey, freshwater mussels, and other miscellaneous resident fish.