After years of technical exchanges, the Yakama Nation appears ready to take a big first step toward its goals of boosting supplementation of endangered spring chinook salmon and steelhead and increasing fall chinook and coho returns to the Klickitat River basin for harvest.

The Independent Scientific Review Panel in a report released last week said that the Yakama Nation's 2008 Klickitat Anadromous Fisheries Master Plan "meets scientific review criteria." That leaves the tribes poised to move into the next phase of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council's three-step process for judging the merits of new hatchery proposals.

The ISRP report can be found at http://www.nwcouncil.org/library/isrp/isrp2008-6.htm

The Council will decide, probably in August, whether to approve the plan, which would "take it from the conceptual to preliminary design," according to Mark Fritsch, the NPCC's project implementation manager. That step 2 includes cost estimation, and National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act review. A goal of the tribes' plan is to rebuild the basin's Upper Columbia spring chinook and steelhead stocks, both ESA-listed.

In funding recommendations made in 2006, the Council earmarked $2.5 million in fiscal year 2007 and $5 million each in 2008 and 2009 for the Klickitat Fishery YKFP project. That recommendation was endorsed by the Bonneville Power Administration, which funds the Council's fish and wildlife program. The BPA decision said there was a need "to address in lieu concerns, out -year cost sharing with NOAA will be explored. Out-year budgets will be reviewed through the three-step process." NOAA's Fisheries Service is responsible for protecting listed stocks.

BPA in a memorandum of agreement signed earlier this year with the Yakama Nation, as well as with the Colville, Umatilla and Warm Springs Tribes, set the capital budget for the project at nearly $27 million. The MOA spans the 2008-2017 period.

The proposal to improve habitat and fish passage, build and improve hatchery facilities and employ new hatchery protocols has slowly been shaped through a series of exchanges between the ISRP and the tribes. It began during a 2000 provincial review when the ISRP reviewed the Klickitat Fisheries program in depth along with the Yakima subbasin fisheries program.

The Council in April asked the ISRP to review a revised master plan submitted in March that was intended to address the three-step review process and past ISRP review concerns.

The latest version "is a well-balanced, relatively thorough plan," according to the June 17 ISRP review. "It includes a large appendix that covers the steps in the Three-Step Review process and explains the Plan's relationship to the Council's Scientific Principles, as required."

The revised plan meets scientific and process criteria with "a qualification that elements of the steelhead and spring Chinook natural and artificial production plans need a more detailed explanation. These should include formal decision analysis and consequence tables (i.e., decision trees) to evaluate the program and identify the performance thresholds that would trigger termination," the ISRP review says.

Those issues could be addressed during the step-2 process, the science panel said. The review lists and explains several other specific issues that should be addressed.

The Yakama Nation's Bill Sharp said that the ISRP's input has been "very helpful" throughout the process and the tribes were ready to address remaining issues.

The review gives, generally, high marks to the revised master plan while noting several areas where the overall strategy and justification could be improved. Previous ISRP reviews had stressed the need to assess the need for supplementing wild spring chinook and steelhead stocks. The new review says its concerns were largely addressed.

"Another progressive attribute is the concession that hatchery supplementation carries some risks that warrant attention as well as the tacit concession that supplementation may fail to achieve its objectives to increase natural productivity," the review says.

"Other conceptual improvements in the Plan include the decisions to delay potential releases of steelhead above Castile Falls for nine years, thus allowing natural colonization a chance to succeed."

Fishways developed at Castile Falls, located at river mile 64, during the 1950s to ease spring chinook passage have performed poorly. But the fishway weirs were recently redesigned and refurbished, providing access to 35 river miles of habitat upriver.

The work, completed in 2005, has already borne some fruit.

"We've seen a few steelhead redds and we've seen adults in the ladder," Sharp said. The hope is that more and more fish will surge upstream, making supplementation unnecessary.

Spring chinook redds have been found above the falls too. Prior to 2005 "essentially zero redds were found" during annual surveys of those upper reaches, according to tribal biologist Joe Zendt. At most, one or two were found.

Four redds were found in 2005 and six were identified in 2006. That number jumped to 36 last year.

Next on the to-do list is installation of a Castile Falls "enumeration facility" that will allow biologists to track escapement into the upper Klickitat and trap salmon and steelhead for biological and DNA assessment.

"Another positive attribute of the Plan is the decision to move away from out-of-basin stocks and toward more local stocks as hatchery broodstock," according to the ISRP review. "This is crucial for aboriginal species or stocks (such as native steelhead and spring Chinook) and may also benefit non-native, but desirable introduced species (such as coho and fall Chinook) that are capable of straying to nearby systems."

The proposal includes the construction of a Lyle Falls Adult Monitoring and Collection Facility, an acclimation facility at McCreedy Creek, the Wahkiacus Hatchery and Acclimation facility, and Klickitat Fish Hatchery improvements.

The proposed Lyle Falls improvements would focus on passage and monitoring efforts needed in the basin. It would also address anticipated needs for the collection of spring chinook and steelhead broodstock, providing enumeration of natural- and hatchery-origin recruits returning to the basin and measures of supplementation success. Lyle Falls is located two miles upstream from the Klickitat River mouth.

BPA in March completed a draft environmental impact statement for the Lyle Falls project and a final EIS is expected in January.

The proposed Wahkiacus facilities at RM 17 would be for the rearing of hatchery coho and fall chinook to be released lower in the basin in hopes of reducing impacts to native fish species.

It is on the tribes' wish list but is a part of the package that poses in lieu issues, Sharp said.

"It is key in several respects," he said. "It frees up 26 miles of river" where listed and non-listed stocks' paths are less likely to cross.

"It also frees up water and space" at the Klickitat hatchery.

The proposed juvenile acclimation facility at McCreedy Creek (RM 70.7) is at the bottom of the priority list. It would be built to allowing the final rearing and release of hatchery steelhead and spring chinook to upstream of Castile Falls.

"If seeding and harvest goals are unmet we could look at it again," Sharp said.

The proposed additions and improvements at the existing hatchery are intended to remedy deficiencies that prevent implementation of preferred rearing densities, broodstock collection protocols and other hatchery reforms.