Draft Boise-Payette-Weiser Subbasin Summary May 17, 2002 Prepared for the Northwest Power Planning Council Editor Stacey H. Stovall, Conservation Innovations, Inc. Subbasin Team Leader Scott Grunder, Idaho Department of Fish and Game Contributors Staff, Idaho Department of Fish and Game Boise-Payette-Weiser Subbasin Summary Table of Contents Background ..............................................................................................................................................1 Introduction ..............................................................................................................................................2 Subbasin Description................................................................................................................................3 General Location..................................................................................................................................3 Drainage Area ......................................................................................................................................3 Topography/geomorphology................................................................................................................4 Climate.................................................................................................................................................7 Major Land Uses..................................................................................................................................8 Water Resources Development and Operations.................................................................................12 Hydrology ..........................................................................................................................................19 Water Quality.....................................................................................................................................23 Vegetation..........................................................................................................................................28 Fish and Wildlife Resources ..................................................................................................................39 Fish and Wildlife Status.....................................................................................................................39 Habitat Areas and Quality..................................................................................................................81 Watershed Assessment.......................................................................................................................94 Major Limiting Factors......................................................................................................................97 Artificial Production ........................................................................................................................103 Existing and Past Efforts..................................................................................................................103 Subbasin Management .........................................................................................................................109 Existing Plans, Policies, and Guidelines..........................................................................................109 Goals, Objectives, Strategies, and Recommended Actions .............................................................124 Research, Monitoring and Evaluation Activities .............................................................................140 Statement of Fish and Wildlife Needs .............................................................................................146 Boise/Weiser/Payette Subbasin Recommendations .............................................................................154 Projects and Budgets........................................................................................................................154 Research, Monitoring and Evaluation Activities .............................................................................173 Needed Future Actions ....................................................................................................................185 Statement of Fish and Wildlife Needs .............................................................................................189 Actions by Others ............................................................................................................................196 References ............................................................................................................................................210 Appendix A. Special Status Species Boise-Payette-Weiser Subbasin Summary ii DRAFT May 17, 2002 List of Tables Table 1. Geology of the Boise-Payette-Weiser subbasins. The percent occurrence of major geologic mapping units is summarized by watershed (adapted from Bond and Wood 1978; Jensen et al. 1997). ................................................................................6 Table 2. Climatic regimes of watersheds within the Boise-Payette-Weiser subbasins: the proportional representation of varying climatic regimes (using the Koppen climatic classification system, described by Godfrey 1999) within the subbasins is summarized by watershed. .........................................................................................8 Table 3. Summary of land ownership patterns within the Boise-Payette-Weiser subbasins: the percent representation of land ownership class is listed for each watershed. ............9 Table 4. Land use patterns within the watersheds of the Boise-Payette-Weiser subbasins: the percent representation of levels of ecological modification is listed by watershed. ..9 Table 5. Distribution of forest and rangeland related land uses among land ownership classes within the Boise-Payette-Weiser subbasins. ............................................................10 Table 6. Summary of USFS inventoried roadless areas within the Boise-Payette-Weiser subbasins. Roadless areas are listed with X’s indicating their distribution within subbasin watersheds. ................................................................................................11 Table 7. Summary of Boise Project operating activities. Adopted from BOR (1996). ............14 Table 8. Summary of Payette system reservoir operating activities. Adopted from BOR (1996). ......................................................................................................................14 Table 9. Summary of Boise and Payette River flow augmentation volume provided by BOR, 1991 - 2001. Adopted from Leitzinger (2000). ........................................................15 Table 10. Existing licensed instream flow water rights for the Boise and Payette River subbasins. .................................................................................................................20 Table 11. Existing recommended licensed instream flow water rights for the Boise and Payette River subbasins............................................................................................20 Table 12. Recommended pool elevations (KAF) and flows (cfs) for fisheries in the Boise and Payette River subbasins. Adapted from BOR (1998)...............................................21 Table 13. Water quality limited segments found on Idaho's 1998 303(d) list in the Boise, Payette, and Weiser River subbasins........................................................................25 Table 14. Percent representation of 14 PNV plant association groups within the Boise-Payette- Weiser subbasins is listed by major watershed (adapted from Jensen et al. 1997)..29 Table 15. Percent representation of 29 land cover classes within the Boise-Payette-Weiser subbasins is listed by watershed (adapted from Landscape Dynamics Lab 1999)...30 Table 16. Matrix of differences between current versus modeled historic fire disturbance regimes in the Boise-Payette-Weiser subbasins (adopted from Hann et al. 1997). Values appearing as “0.0” are less than 0.1 percent.................................................33 Table 17. Rare and endemic plant species (with global rank G1 through G3 or state rank S1 through S2) known to occur within the Boise-Payette-Weiser subbasins are listed by species with the number of population occurrences summarized by watershed.36 Table 18. Noxious weed species distributions within the Boise-Payette-Weiser subbasins are summarized by county. Data are taken from Morishita et al. (2001) with supplemental information from field contacts..........................................................38 Boise-Payette-Weiser Subbasin Summary iii DRAFT May 17, 2002 Table 19. Fish species documented to be present in the Boise-Payette-Weiser subbasins, Idaho.........................................................................................................................40 Table 20. Fish population and density estimates for wild rainbow trout and mountain whitefish in a one-mile reach of the South Fork Boise River upstream of Deadwood Creek. Data collected by the IDFG in 1991, 1994, and 1998. .................................43 Table 21. Fish species sampled using electrofishing gear in tributaries of the upper South Fork Boise River in 1998. Data collected by the IDFG (Partridge and Warren, in press). ..................................................................................................................................44