Revised Master Plan For The Hood River Production Program Technical Report 2008 PDF Download

The Hood River Production Program (HRPP) is a Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) funded program initiated as a mitigation measure for Columbia River hydrosystem effects on anadromous fish. The HRPP began in the early 1990s with the release of spring Chinook and winter steelhead smolts into the basin. Prior to implementation, co-managers, including the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife drafted the Hood River Production Master Plan (O'Toole and ODFW 1991a; O'Toole and ODFW 1991b) and the Pelton Ladder Master Plan (Smith and CTWSR 1991). Both documents were completed in 1991 and subsequently approved by the Council in 1992 and authorized through a BPA-led Environmental Impact Statement in 1996. In 2003, a 10-year programmatic review was conducted for BPA-funded programs in the Hood River (Underwood et al. 2003). The primary objective of the HRPP Review (Review) was to determine if program goals were being met, and if modifications to program activities would be necessary in order to meet or revise program goals. In 2003, an agreement was signed between PacifiCorp and resource managers to remove the Powerdale Dam (RM 10) and associated adult trapping facility by 2010. The HRPP program has been dependant on the adult trap to collect broodstock for the hatchery programs; therefore, upon the dam's removal, some sort of replacement for the trap would be needed to continue the HRPP. At the same time the Hood River Subbasin Plan (Coccoli 2004) was being written and prompted the co-managers to considered future direction of the program. This included revising the numerical adult fish objectives based on the assimilated data and output from several models run on the Hood River system. In response to the Review as well as the Subbasin Plan, and intensive monitoring and evaluation of the current program, the HRPP co-managers determined the spring Chinook program was not achieving the HRPP's defined smolt-to-adult (SAR) survival rate guidelines. The observed low SAR was due to precocity, straying, and incidence of BKD in the spring Chinook program; which ultimately led to the program's inability to achieve the subbasin's overly optimistic biological fish objectives. The summer steelhead hatchery program was not providing the fishery or population benefits anticipated and will be discontinued. The winter steelhead program was performing as planned and no changes are foreseen. This updated Master Plan addresses the several proposed changes to the existing HRPP, which are described.