Mattole Watershed Plan 2'0

1
Mattole Watershed Plan 2.0 TAC Presentation,
November 13th, 2008

• An Opportunity to Provide Input on Strategies,
  Milestones, and Plan Gaps
• Priority Issues and What is Missing?
• Grasslands
• Fire
• Fisheries
• Riparian Ecosystem Restoration
• Water Management
• Prioritization

2
Priority Issues

• Watershed Plan 2.0 structured around 9 Priority
  Issues that address
• Sedimentation and temperature increases, as well
  as potential increases in nutrients, pesticides,
  and fuel run-off
• Decreasing per capita water supplies
• Threatened salmonid populations
• Invasive species
• Tightly stocked second growth forests
• Human population growth
• Global climate change
• Catastrophic, stand replacing wildfire
• The lack of community involvement and
  participation

3
What Are We Missing?

• Areas that we do not address?
• What information or knowledge about the watershed
  conditions are we lacking?
• What further research might we do to inform our
  actions?

4
Grassland Restoration Strategies

• Prevent the introduction and/or spread of
  invasive species
• Increase the abundance and diversity of native
  species through revegetation and vegetation
  management
• Encourage habitat enhancement and preservation
  for rare and sensitive species
• Conduct workshops/events and provide information
  on current conditions in the watershed.
• Help to implement appropriate best management
  practices for resource conservation and land
  stewardship.

5
Grassland Restoration Strategies

• Provide resources and programs to local
  landowners that encourage good stewardship while
  providing economic benefits.
• Maintain agricultural/ranch productivity by
  promoting sound resource use throughout the
  watershed.
• Identify priority areas for acquisition or
  conservation easements
• Prevent further fragmentation of forests and
  other important habitat assemblages by promoting
  ecologically sound land management and working to
  reduce subdivision pressures
• Continue fuel reduction projects throughout the
  watershed in high priority areas

6
Fire Strategies

• Develop the organizational capacity to use fire
  as a land management tool
• Increase the abundance and diversity of native
  species through revegetation and management and
  encourage habitat enhancement and preservation of
  habitat for rare and sensitive species.
• Protect human structures and property by creating
  shaded fuels breaks and defensible space around
  homes and communities
• Continue fuel reduction projects throughout the
  watershed, first in high priority areas, but also
  in lower priority areas where land owners are
  engaged and fuel levels are high

7
Fire Strategies

• Support the use of prescribed fire where
  appropriate and consistent with the MRC Fire
  Policy
• Work cooperatively with existing fire agencies,
  volunteer departments, councils and groups to
  plan and carry out controlled burns on both
  private and public lands and work towards a
  pervasive understanding of fire ecology
• Increase the MRRPs knowledge of the long-term
  (2-10 years) effectiveness of fuel reduction
  projects and their effects in different forest
  types

8
Fisheries Strategies

• Strategy -- Identify limiting factors on stream
  conditions
• High temperature,
• Low water and summer flows,
• Deficient cover and lack of complex habitat,
• Sediment (turbidity, embeddedness, sediment
  transport, pool depth, and channel aggradation),
• Specific critical habitat reaches,
• Dissolved oxygen effects (headwaters and
  estuary/lagoon),
• Critical cold water inputs and reaches,
• Status of indicator aquatic macroinvertebrates,
• Concentrations of toxins, nutrients, and fuel in
  the watershed
• Presence and threat of invasive aquatic species

9
Fisheries Strategies

• Strategy -- Reduce the impact of limiting factors
  on salmonids
• Increase the number of large wood structures and
  percentage of riparian cover
• Maintain cold water inputs to the mainstem
• Maintain and increase access to spawning and
  rearing habitat, specifically cold water
  tributaries
• Reduce sediment inputs
• Improve estuarine conditions
• Increase summer flows
• If invasive species, pesticides, nutrients, and
  toxins are found to be a problem, implement
  education, eradication, and reduction programs
• Rear salmonids over summer when rescue operations
  become necessary
• Rear Chinook salmon over summer when estuary
  water quality conditions are poor
• Increase important juvenile over-wintering
  floodplain habitat

10
Fisheries Strategies

• Strategy -- Create a long-term monitoring program
  to measure trends in water quality, water
  quantity, and salmonid population response
• Measure salmonid population abundance and growth
• Measure spatial structure and diversity of
  species, as well as specific life-history
  strategies for each population
• Measure specific limiting factors on an annual
  basis and identify main limiting factors for each
  life history stage for each species

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Riparian Ecosystem Restoration
Priority Issue 1 Sedimentation and temperature
increases, as well as potential increases in
nutrients, pesticides, and fuel run-off from
expanding home sites and new residential
development, will continue to impact the water
quality and recognized beneficial uses of the
Mattole River. Riparian Sub-issues A lack of
canopy cover in stream reaches contributes to
elevated water temperatures Streamside
landslides and bank erosion are significant
sources of sediment in some Mattole streams,
adversely affecting salmonid habitat
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R.E.R

• Priority Issue 3)   Existing salmonid populations
  are threatened by decreased habitat quality and
  severely diminished overall numbers, weakening
  their ability to respond to negative changes in
  habitat quality and ecological processes.
• Riparian Sub-issues
• Historic land use and stream cleaning has
  resulted in a lack of instream wood, leading to
  reduced stream channel complexity, and reduced
  quality of winter and summer rearing habitat,
  especially important for juvenile coho salmon

13
R.E.R

• Priority Issue 5) Current forest composition in
  the watershed is dominated by tightly stocked
  second growth Douglas fir and mixed hardwood
  forest
• Riparian Sub-issues
• Tree size and species composition of most
  riparian forests is poor for recruitment of
  instream large wood, leading to a long-term gap
  in wood recruitment
• In some heavily impaired streams site conditions
  are unsuitable for natural regeneration of
  riparian trees.

14
R.E.R Strategies

• Successional Revegetation
• Riparian Conifer Enhancement
• Post-Thinning In-stream Wood Structures
• Bank and Landslide Stabilization Using
  Bioengineering

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Prioritization

• Past Mattole Project Prioritization Approaches
• 1992 Approach
• A. Number of species of salmonids in the stream
• B. Degree of sediment production
• C. Number of projects planned or completed in
  the area
• D. Perceived need for data
• E. Access and public involvement

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Prioritization

• Riparian Ecosystem Restoration method from WP 1.0
• Salmonid presence (numerically based on number of
  species),
• NCWAP refugia status (1-3, low-high),
• Water temperature (higher ranking to streams with
  high water temps but high habitat potential,
  lowest ranking for streams with temps lt64 F),
• Riparian canopy cover and coniferous canopy
  cover (highest priority to lowest cover ratings),
  
• GRCC project activity.

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Prioritization

• Other Approaches
• By Species
• Geographically by habitat quality
• By Threat
• Projected response time
• Likelihood of positive response/chance of
  project success
• Longevity
• Treat cause or symptom of degradation
• Social and economic factors
• Information needs

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Prioritization

• Proposed Criteria for WP 2.0
• Does the project directly address known limiting
  factors for Coho or Chinook, in otherwise good
  habitat (such as Thompson Creek) or critical
  habitat (the estuary its not good, but its
  critical).
• Does the project improve marginal or potential
  habitat (few or no recent sightings) for Coho or
  Chinook (increasing instream wood in a stream
  such as Eubanks)
• 3. How quickly will the projected positive
  responses be seen from the project (water storage
  tanks quickly, riparian thinning not so
  quickly)
• 4. How long-lasting will the positive effects of
  the project be? To what degree is it
  self-sustaining

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Prioritization

• 5. How certain are we that the project will do
  what we want it to do? What is the chance of a
  successful outcome? (water bars high, instream
  work - less high)
• 6. Does the project have the support of
  landowners and area residents? Is it considered
  important by residents? In many cases, if access
  is granted from one land owner, neighboring land
  owners will follow suit once they feel
  comfortable with the process and the projects.
• 7. Will the project contribute to priority issues
  9 and 10? Does it empower and involve community
  members?
• 8. Will the project meet a number of priority
  goals for the sub basin (e.g will bank
  stabilization and/ or plantings help to improve
  cover as well as reduce sediment inputs?)
• 9. Has other work been done in this sub basin?
  Are there conservation easements or other land
  use restrictions that would leverage the benefits
  of the project?