Snake River - Asotin IMW PSMFC

This project was a continuation of the Asotin Creek multi-year IMW project. The project is an Intensively Monitored Watershed monitoring project. The project focused on three tributaries to the Asotin Creek in Southeast Washington. The tributaries are: Charley Creek, North Fork Asotin Creek, and South Fork Asotin Creek. The purpose of the project was to link salmon and steelhead responses to specific mechanisms related to habitat restoration. The fundamental approach is to treat restoration as an experiment and concentrate a large restoration effort in order to increase the likelihood of detecting a population increase. This type of project increases our understanding of what restoration activities are most effective, demonstrate how changes in habitat influence survival of various life stages of salmon and steelhead, determine what magnitude of restoration is required to cause a significant population response, and ultimately provide information to better evaluate the efficacy of habitat restoration. The restoration effort was focused on summer run steelhead habitat. The funds for this grant award focused on continuing the IMW effort in the Asotin. This phase included:

1) Continue baseline monitoring of 12 permanent sites for fish abundance and habitat condition,
2) Implement restoration treatment plan based on approval of the plan by the Regional Technical Team
3) Monitoring a wide variety of response variables

Project cost increase of 35% included a new pit tag array.

This Intensively Monitored Project has increased our understanding of what restoration activities are most effective, demonstrated how changes in habitat influence survival of various life stages of salmon and steelhead, and helped determine what magnitude of restoration is required to cause a significant population response, and ultimately provide information to better evaluate the efficacy of habitat restoration.