Hydrological and Biological Considerations for Instream Flow Restoration

Hydrological and Biological Considerations for Instream Flow Restoration Stan Isley Due Diligence and Water Transfers CBWTP – QLE Workshop April 6, 2004, Walla, WA

Opening Comments • Restoring our stream systems – the 5 F’s: flows, fish, floodplains, form, & function • Proving People and Fish can Co-exist • You’re doing the good work! • Stream Restoration Family • Support Your “Family”

Prioritization • Most projects are good & have benefits • Can’t fund them all • Must prioritize to get “Biggest Bang for the Buck” • But: Acquisitions are opportunity driven • Don’t lose an opportunity to acquire

Ensure Successes and Good Relations with Ag • Ag holds most of the water used offstream in the Columbia Basin • Must work to ensure good relationship with ag and ensure projects are win-win

Normative Flows • Normative Flows are river flows that provide enough habitat to sustain or expand populations of anadromous fisheries in all life history stages (Independent Scientific Group, 1999) • Normative Flows emulate the historic discharge regime or flow pattern of the stream • Normative Flows are NOT circa 1800 flows

Stream Restoration • Restore the function & the form will restore itself • Rewater our streams • Remove Dikes & levees where possible • Restore floodplain access and function • Remove Fish Passage Barriers

Stan’s Pronouncement • Without floods, we can’t have salmon! • Let our streams flood

Huffaker & Whittlesey • Consumptive use and return flow portions of water rights defined • Consumptive use: lost to atmosphere by evapotranspiration or tied up in plant tissue • Return flow: everything else that’s diverted • Ag conservation projects increase instream flows only in the reach of stream from the historic diversion point to the last return flow point

Huffaker & Whittlesey’s Pronouncement • There are only 2 ways to reduce ag consumptive water use in a basin: • 1) Irrigate fewer acres, or • 2) Switch to crops requiring less water to grow (e. g. , to wheat, from alfalfa)

Water Conservation/Water Use Efficiency Projects • May still merit funding by CBWTP when: • Fish migration barriers are eliminated • The reach of stream below the diversion is critical habitat • The benefiting reach is miles long • An out-of-basin transfer quantity is reduced • Note: It’s an important tool in our stream restoration toolbox

Normative flow restoration These factors, collectively applied, can restore normative flows to many streams: • Acquisition of instream flow trust water rights • Water conservation and water use efficiency improvements • Floodplain restoration • Normative flow management on regulated rivers

Quantification of Beneficial & Transferable Use • No increase in consumptive use • No detriment or injury to other rights • Must calculate consumptive use portion of right with WIG or equivalent method

Washington Irrigation Guide • The WIG was compiled by NRCS and the Washington State Cooperative Extension Service • Estimates average-year crop irrigation water requirements (CIR) for 60 crops at 90 climatic stations in Washington State, defined monthly and annually • CIR = consumptive use portion of water right • Exceedingly valuable tool for defining the Qi of the instream flow water right that will be created by retiring an off-stream use

Washington Water Acquisition Program – Finding Ways to Restore Streams • March 2003, Publication No. 03 -11 -005 • Available on WA Dept. of Ecology website at http: //www. ecy. wa. gov/biblio/0311005 • Or from Ecology Publication Distribution Center, PO Box 47600, Olympia, WA 98504 -7600, E-mail: ecypub@ecy. wa. gov, Phone: (360) 407 -7472

Washington Water Acquisition Program – Finding Ways to Restore Streams • Authored by Ecology and WDFW water acquisition and stream flow restoration staff • Great reference. Get one for your bookshelf • Concise listing of hydrological, biological, and other considerations for instream flow restoration for salmon and stream restoration

CBWTP Website • 1) Criteria for Evaluating Proposals to Secure Tributary Water • 2) Water Transactions Checklist for Specific Water Transactions to Increase Tributary Flows • Updated Feb 2004 • Good list of the important questions to ask when contemplating acquisitions

Perry Harvester’s Paper • Perry put together a good summary of biological and hydrological considerations for instream flow acquisitions – 15 pages • Copy to NFWF for distribution to QLE’s

Water Marketing & Water Banking • The future of water allocation is water marketing – Stan Isley, 2004 • Do what you can to encourage the development of water markets and water banks • Water markets/water banks will help us restore streams by connecting us with willing sellers

Monitoring & Enforcement • We must be able to measure and monitor our acquired instream flow water • We must be able to protect our acquired instream flow water against diversion and use by unauthorized water users • This may require enforcement by a stream patrolperson

Hydrological Considerations #1 • Buy only real “wet” water, not paper water rights • Acquire senior water rights with full-season or full-year availability • Only retired consumptive use can create an instream flow water right all the way “to the Pacific Ocean” • Permanent acquisitions are preferred over leases • Long-term leases are preferred over short-term, but are still non-permanent • Partial-Year & Dry-year/drought-year leases are important enhancement measures for certain streams • Acquire water rights with a high consumptive use component to maximize the instream flow enhancement

Hydrological Considerations #2 • Banking of acquired water in reservoirs allows flow shaping for maximum fish benefit • Surface water rights better than GW rights • Gifts or donations of water may qualify as Federal Income Tax deductions for donor

Hydrological Considerations #3 • Water conservation and water use efficiency improvements normally do not reduce consumptive use, they just reduce conveyance and application losses • Water conservation and water use efficiency improvements therefore only benefit specific stream reaches (from diversion point to last return flow point) • Conservation Projects can remove fish passage barriers, improve WQ, rewater dewatered stream reaches, improve critical habitat • Hard to negotiate real wet water diversion reductions/instream flow increases on large irrigation districts – annual water use variation • Piped gravity-flow irrigation systems more fish-friendly than pumped systems? – Smolts & turbines

Hydrological Considerations #4 • Conserved water resulting from ag efficiency improvements can not be transferred to a new consumptive use, should always be assigned to instream flow use • Capture and consumptive reuse of ag return flow water may reduce instream flows in the stream below the return flow point • Acquiring out-of-basin transferred water rights may increase instream flows by 100% of the right, possibly “all the way to the Ocean”

Hydrological Considerations #5 • Acquired water rights: • 100% go to instream flow at the historic diversion point • The retired consumptive-use portion goes to instream flow from the last return flow point all the way to the Ocean • Consumptive use is determined by month, not averaged over the year. The instream flow right Qi will vary by month as a result (Bell Curve) • Note: More flow is not always needed in ALL months in rivers carrying reservoir releases (think normative!)

Biological Considerations #1 • ESA-listed salmonids present in the stream? Highest priority • Depressed stocks or reduced diversity of species of fish in the stream? • Stream is a migration corridor or spawning or rearing habitat for resident or anadromous salmonids • Stream has fish migration barrier that can be eliminated

Biological Considerations #2 • Stream has inadequate flows, caused by diversions, limiting fish recovery • Stream has impaired WQ caused by lack of flow • Small streams show the best cost/benefit ratio for acquisitions, have best chance for immediate fish benefit • Larger streams with several ESA-species rank high for flow improvement

Biological Considerations #3 • Is the likelihood of long-term flow and fish recovery good? • Work with fisheries agencies & Indian Tribes to identify & prioritize streams to target (e. g. , Limiting Factors Analysis) • Determine current habitat conditions & needs • Determine the time period when flows are inadequate

Biological Considerations #4 • The acquisition must help achieve instream flow requirements for fish in critical fish habitat stream reaches • It may also benefit WQ, stream side channels, restoration of riparian vegetation, and floodplain function

Biological Considerations # 5 • Stan says: • Don‘t write off the larger streams. The long -term view says each acquisition for instream flow use represents incremental progress toward achieving normative flows in our streams

Biological Considerations #6 • Know your fish life histories. Tailor your water acquisitions to provide the most benefit to your target fish. • Pulse flows or flushing flows for smolt outmigration • Base flows for over-summering Spring Chinook, Coho, Steelhead fry

Teanaway River Example • • From 1980 through 1999, an average of 1 Spring Chinook salmon redd was counted annually in the entire Teanaway basin. In many of those years, no redds were counted Purchase and lease of water rights for instream flow use, by both Trendwest and Reclamation, occurred in the late 1990’s BPA/NPCC/Reclamation/and Yakama Nation provided funding for 3 new ag irrigation systems, eliminating diversion berms and improving flows in specific stream reaches, completed in 2000 The above improvements greatly improve fish passage through the lower Teanaway River 21 spring Chinook salmon redds were counted in 2000, 21 counted in 2001 BPA/NPCC/Yakama Nation supplementation facility-reared native Spring Chinook salmon were released at the Jack Creek acclimation pond on the North Fork Teanaway River in 2000 110 spring Chinook salmon redds were counted in 2002 in the Teanaway Basin By using all the tools in the toolbox, we have achieved this water conservation success story in the Teanaway River Basin. Let’s do this in other river basins too.

Closing Thought • We need to develop water markets! • We need brokers! • Thanks everyone.