Status of the Resol! [Libra Y

.. Tt' r i ., Y R1 ~ [P 6A IN STATUS OF THE RESOL! [LIBRA Y .. . .. TRINITY COUNTY LIBHAR TRINITY RIVER BASIN WEAVERVILLE, CA l.

FISH AND WILDLIFE

RESTORATION PROGRAlVI

OCTOBER 1992

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FOR ADDmONAL INFORMATION CALL:

Trinity River Basin Field Office #3 Horseshoe Square P.O. Box 1450 Weaverville, California 96093

.(916) 623-3931 Fish and Wildlife Service (916) 623-2508 Bureau of Reclamation This report has been prepared to inform the public about what has taken place during the first 7 years of the Trinity River Restoration Program.

BACKGROUND: The passage of the Trinity River Basin Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act (P.L. 98-541) in October 1984 provided for a la-year program to restore fish and wildlife resources to pre-Trinity Division, Central Valley Project levels. The program is legislated to continue until 1995 and will cost over $70 million. The cost is being shared by the Federal and state governments with the Central Valley Project providing 50%.

Major features include:

1. Construction of Buckhorn Dam a sediment control feature on Grass Valley Creek;

2. Purchase of about 17,000 acres of Grass Valley Creek to restore and manage for sediment reduction;

3. Modernizing the Trinity River Fish Hatchery;

4. Fish habitat improvement projects on the Trinity River and it tributaries;

5. Development and implementation of a wildlife mitigation and enhancement program; and

6. Watershed stabilization projects to reduce sedimentation of streams.

The Secretary of the Interior has the ultimate responsibility for completing the program. A Field Office, operated cooperatively by the u.s. Bureau of Reclamation and the u.s. Fish and wildlife Service, has been established in Weaverville, California, to facilitate restoration work. A Task Force consisting of representatives from 14 Federal, State, and county entities as well as the Hoopa Valley Tribe has been assembled to assist and advise the Secretary. A 14-member Technical coordinating Committee has been established to assist and advise the Field Office and the Task Force. The members of the Trinity River Fish and wildlife Restoration Task Force are:

California Department of Fish and Game Bureau of Indian Affairs California Department of Forestry and Bureau of Land Management Fire Protection Bureau of Reclamation California Department of Water Fish and wildlife Service Resources Forest Service Hoopa Valley Indian Tribe National Marine Fisheries Service Humboldt County Soil Conservation Service State Water Quality Control Board Trinity County

2 NEEDS: During the 1960-80 period, populations of chinook and coho salmon and steelhead in the Trinity River Basin declined to about 20 percent of historic levels. These declines resulted from a variety of human and natural events. Negative human activities included excessive harvesting; construction and operation of the Trinity Division Central Valley Project; and sedimentation due to timber harvesting, building roads, mining, and other activities that disturbed the landscape. Floods, particularly in 1964, have magnified the effects of harmful land management by resulting in landslides and raising the levels of sediment in stream channels. The combination of reduced flows accompanied by increased sedimentation has been particularly harmful to fisheries. The ongoing 6-year drought has also hurt the fishery and impaired restoration efforts. The mainstem from Lewiston Darn to the confluence of the North Fork Trinity River (about 40 river miles) is presently severely impacted having gradually lost much of its quality habitat to sediment deposition and encroachment of vegetation.

Construction and operation of the Trinity Division also resulted in the loss of about 20,000 acres of deer habitat as well as adverse impacts to other riparian and upland species.

GOALS: The program is designed to:

1. Improve the capability of the Trinity River Hatchery to mitigate for fishery losses which have occurred above Lewiston Darn.

2. Restore natural salmon and steelhead production in the mainstem and tributaries to pre-darn levels.

3. Recommend fish harvest management practices consistent with achieving other program goals.

4. Compensate for deer and other wildlife losses resulting from flooding of habitat and reduced streamflows.

5. Develop and implement land management activities to stabilize watersheds and reduce sediment yield to streams.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

Trinity River Salmon and Steelhead Hatchery -- Construction work was completed in the spring of 1991. The hatchery located in Lewiston, California, was completely modernized. Improvements include:

1. Water supply and aeration facilities

2. A direct fish release system to the river

3. Concrete ponds replacing gravel raceways.

3 4. Extensive predator exclusion fencing around the new ponds

5. Upgraded fish access

6. Water heaters for egg incubation

7. A new food storage and freezer building

Cost of the improvements was about $8 million of which $3 million was from restoration funds. The additional $5 million came from Central Valley Project construction funds through the Bureau of Reclamation.

Restoration of Natural Salmon and steelhead Production By the end of 1992, the following activities will be completed:

1. Side-channel habitat will be built and evaluated in 12 locations on the mainstem upstream of Junction City. Three feather edge projects will have been constructed between Douglas City and the North Fork. Lack of rearing habitat has been identified as a major factor limiting anadromous fish production. Present information indicates that juvenile salmon and steelhead are using the side-channels. Some spawning activity has also been observed. The feather edges have yet to be fully evaluated. Potential sites for other side-channels and feather edges have been located for a large-scale implementation of a habitat improvement program scheduled to begin in 1993.

2. About 30,000 square feet of spawning habitat will be restored by placing gravel in 5 sites in the mainstem between Lewiston Dam and the mouth of Grass Valley Creek. An ongoing gravel maintenance program has been established. 3. Fish habitat typing inventories necessary to design restoration work on about 250 miles of fish habitat in 35 tributary streams in the Trinity River watershed will have been completed.

4. Habitat improvement work will be completed on 9 mainstem tributaries and 4 tributaries on the South Fork tributary streams.

5. A system will be designed and tested for determining the numbers of juvenile salmon and steelhead annually migrating out of the mainstem into the Klamath River. This capability will provide baseline data and a direct means to evaluate the success of restoration measures.

6. Approximately 33,000 cubic yards of decomposed granite material will have been removed from 5 locations in the Trinity River between the lower end of Poker Bar and Lewiston.

4 7. An action plan to restore the fish habitat and population of the South Fork Trinity River will be developed and partially implemented.

Harvest Management -- Annual estimates of run-size, composition, and distribution for fall chinook, spring chinook, coho, and steelhead are being developed by the California Department of Fish and Game using restoration funds. This information is made available to the Klamath Fishery Management Council and the Pacific Fishery Management Council for use in preparing ocean harvest regulations. Data is also provided to the Federal and State agencies, and Indian Tribes responsible for regulating ocean and inland harvest. Currently, harvest management is conservative making certain that enough adult spawners escape into the watershed to fully use available habitat and build up fish populations.

wildlife Management -- A comprehensive wildlife restoration plan will be completed based on habitat types. Completed and ongoing projects include deer winter range improvement, migration monitoring, and vegetation conversion; identification of mainstem riparian habitat utilization by wildlife species with emphasis on threatened and endangered species; evaluation of nesting success and population monitoring of bald eagles and peregrine falcons around Lewiston and Trinity Reservoirs, and wetland and watering hole development on selected dry and upland slopes that have ecological indicator or economic value.

Watershed Stabilization and Sediment Reduction

1. A sediment collection and disposal system on Grass Valley Creek and the mainstem Trinity River has been completed. Three pools with 70,000 cubic yards capacity are located on the lower end of Grass Valley Creek (the heaviest contributor of sediment to the mainstem). There are 4 pools having a capacity of about 40,000 cubic yards on the mainstem. These pools are periodically dredged and the material removed deposited in designated disposal areas. The pools also function as holding habitat for fish. Buckhorn Dam and Reservoir, completed in 1990, has a 1,000 acre-foot storage capacity sufficient to trap about 25% of the sediment originating in the Grass Valley Creek drainage for at least 50 years.

2. About 17,000 acres of privately owned extremely erodible and heavily impacted land in the Grass Valley Creek watershed will have been purchased for management by the Bureau of Land Management. A cooperative land management plan involving government and private entities will be developed.

5 3. Inventories necessary to identify sediment sources and design restoration projects will be completed for about 35 watersheds.

4. Sediment reduction activities will be carried out in 15 tributary watersheds where inventories indicated cost-effective benefits would be achieved.

5. Sediment reduction and prevention were included in the action plan developed for the South Fork Trinity River.

6. A program to reduce off-road vehicle use in the Grass Valley Creek Watershed has been completed.

Trinity River Flow Evaluation Program -- This 12-year program, initiated in 1985, is being carried out concurrently with the restoration program. This effort resulted from a 1981 Secretary of the Interior directive making additional Central Valley Project water available for fishery purposes. The program is being conducted and coordinated by the Fish and Wildlife Service, Fish and Wildlife Enhancement Office, Sacramento, California. The focus is on the mainstem Trinity River from Lewiston Dam to its confluence with the Klamath River at Witchepec. The program objectives are to identify and evaluate the relationship between streamflow and fish habitat and to monitor restoration progress. The flow evaluation program and the restoration program are closely coordinated. In May of 1991 another Secretarial Decision provided for at least 340,000 acre feet per year for the Trinity River to the end of the flow study in 1996. After 1996 the Fish and Wildlife Service will prepare an evaluation report for the Secretary of the Interior that will be used to determine the amount of water made available for long-term fishery management.

A two-dimensional computer temperature model of Lewiston Reservoir has been developed.

FUTURE WORK:

Trinity River Salmon and Steelhead Hatchery -- Operation of the modernized fish hatchery will continue to be evaluated. Emphasis will be on improving the growth and condition of fingerlings and yearlings released into the river. A primary objective is to release hatchery fish so as not to interfere with natural fish.

Restoration of Natural Salmon and Steelhead Production -- By september 30, 1995, (legislated end of the restoration program) the objectives are:

1. The mainstem habitat improvement plan will be completed and largely implemented. The plan will emphasize constructing side channels, bank feathers, and other habitats and removal of deposited sediment from pools, rearing areas, and spawning gravel.

6 2. The fish habitat needs assessments, for all significant tributaries, will be completed and projects selected and implemented in accordance with a set of criteria designed to improve fish habitat. In addition, consideration will be given to ensuring that the added improvements will not be adversely affected by ongoing or future land use activities.

3. The system for determining numbers of juvenile salmon and steelhead migrating downstream each year will be continued to improve accuracy and assess program effectiveness. The objective is to obtain a direct measurement of restoration success and to monitor annual variations in fish production.

Harvest Management -- Data for estimating run size, composition, and distribution of salmon and steelhead populations will continue to be collected and provided to those responsible for developing ocean and inland harvest regulations.

Wildlife Management -- Additional projects will be implemented under the comprehensive wildlife restoration plan. Projects will continue to emphasize enhancement of deer habitat and also include improvements of riparian and other upland habitats. This will benefit a variety of species, including those that are economically important, threatened or endangered, and indicators of overall ecological conditions.

Watershed stabilization and Sediment Reduction

1. The sediment control and removal system for Grass Valley Creek and the upper Trinity River will be completed, implemented, and evaluated. The system will consist of Buckhorn Reservoir (permanent sediment storage), Grass Valley Creek pools (temporary sediment storage and dredging), mainstem pools (temporary storage and dredging), and potentially periodic sediment flushing flows to clean gravel, move material downstream, and maintain beneficial channel characteristics. Also, there may be some mechanical cleaning of spawning, rearing, and other pool areas. Two different flow studies are being performed that will provide information on the relationships between flows, channel shape, and movement of sediment in the Trinity River.

2. Major Grass Valley Creek watershed restoration will continue.

3. The watershed/sediment inventories will be completed and used to select and implement cost-effective sediment reduction projects throughout the Trinity River. Emphasis will be on taking preventive measures that will avoid later more costly

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rehabilitation work. Emphasis will also be on working with the various public and private land management entities to reform current activities where appropriate so that restoration lIinvestmentsll are protected.

Education -- A 4-year project to establish a permanent balanced environmental curriculum in the Trinity and Humboldt County school systems (kindergarten through grade 12) will be completed. The project is titled: ADOPT-A-WATERSHED FISH AND WILDLIFE EDUCATION PROGRAM and will be coordinated by the Trinity County Department of Education. A Kindergarten through Grade 12 curriculum has been developed and is being tested.

Library -- A technical and historical library will be assembled and housed in Weaverville.

Program Extension -- A plan will be prepared to complete unfinished elements of the restoration program and to maintain benefits. This process will include acquisition of required funding.

Public involvement and input to the restoration program is welcome.