CTUIR Ceded Area Subbasin Priority Natural Resource Acquisitions VII

The 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.

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.