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1 UPDATES TO THE 2005 PUGET SOUND CHINOOK RECOVERY PLAN Woody Debris Target Update of the Stillaguamish Chinook Recovery Plan Produced by: The Stillaguamish Technical Advisory Group, a subcommittee of the SWC 2/8/2016 Version 1.0

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Page 1: Woody Debris Target Update of the Stillaguamish Chinook ... Woody Debris Targ… · Woody Debris Target Update of the Stillaguamish Chinook Recovery Plan ... WOODY DEBRIS TARGET –

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UPDATES TO THE 2005 PUGET SOUND CHINOOK RECOVERY PLAN

Woody Debris Target Update of the Stillaguamish Chinook Recovery Plan

Produced by: The Stillaguamish Technical Advisory Group, a subcommittee of the SWC

2/8/2016

Version 1.0

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Adaptive Management of Woody Debris - Target Update Objectives

1. Adapt wood target quantities for near-term implementation (10 years) and for desired future

condition (natural and constructed wood quantities).

2. Review and consider woody debris reference values from literature to create condition bins (i.e.;

Poor, Fair, Good, Best).

3. Develop monitoring objectives that support information needs to describe woody debris status,

changes and implementation progress over time.

The revised woody debris targets are developed around the following information categories and can be

reviewed at a regular time interval;

What – Woody debris target definitions and descriptions,

Where – Priority locations for wood placement implementation,

Why – Addresses key functions and river process that have been altered and affected by

historical loss of wood,

How – Project and placement types expected to have high performance,

How much – Wood quantity by location that leads to a Desired Future Condition.

Adaptive Management is future decision-making informed by baseline conditions, documented change,

progress relative to goals, new science-based information, and new alternatives for action that

eventually lead to Desired Future Conditions. The wood target will be adjusted every 10 years depending

on total wood and or wood jam abundance (and functions) of constructed and natural wood

components. Hypothetically, if natural jam count declines, then the constructed jam target (and level of

effort) would be increased. If natural jam abundance raises the total jam count toward the desired

future condition, then the constructed jam target eventually might be less. This is known as the wood

budget to achieve desired future conditions and will be managed adaptively by collecting and applying

future monitoring information.

The following table highlights the woody debris target objectives described by the current plan (SIRC

2005) and the proposed targets for the second 10-year salmon recovery period (2016-2025). These

proposed targets are recommended by the Stillaguamish TAG for approval by the Stillaguamish

Watershed Council.

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Table 1. TAG Recommendation to SWC for proposed updated LWD Target.

WOODY DEBRIS

TARGET –

PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION TARGET FOR 2ND 10-YEAR SALMON RECOVERY

PERIOD (2016-2025)

CATEGORY/

CRITERIA CURRENT PROPOSED

Locations for LWD

placement

NF/SF NF/SF/Mainstem/Pilchuck Cr./Jim Cr./Squire

Cr./Boulder/French/Deer.

Type Build engineered log

jams with 40 to 60 large

wood pieces per jam.

ELJs according to site specific design criteria.

Flood Fences that may form future in-channel log jams.

Quantity 51 jams in 10 years (62

jams in 50 years;

baseline year is 2005).

122 jams in 10 years (2016-2025); See Table 4 and Map

4.

Targets Number of “approved”

jams vary among 7

reaches in NF/SF (Plan

page 97).

Number of jams vary among 16 target reaches (see

Tables 3 and 4) as either 2, 4, or 8 jams/km.

Priority locations Near high Chinook use

areas in 1st/2nd priority

areas (Figure 20 in Plan,

page 108).

Map 4.

Effective functions Pool formation, side

channels engagement,

fish cover, roughness,

flow routing.

Pool formation, side channels engagement, fish cover,

roughness, flow routing, hyporheic exchange,

temperature diversity.

Progress needed 5 ELJs/yr.; evaluate in

Year 3 and 7 of first 10

years (2014).

12 wood installations/year; Evaluate in year 3 and year 7

of 2nd 10 years (2016-2025).

Limitations/

Uncertainty

Risk, feasibility, hazard

management.

Risk, feasibility, hazard management; Also, uncertain

linkage between Corridor Acquisition Plan, River Reach

Assessments, and importance or sequence with respect

to other Plan targets.

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Implementation

monitoring

Count ELJs w/ 40

pieces.

Count LWD key pieces meeting NMFS criteria as part of

wood jam or flood fence construction; Count all other

smaller pieces used for construction that contribute to

wood jams.

Effectiveness Placement of wood is

increasing habitat (≥5%

pool area [primary &

backwater], pool

frequency) within 5

years.

Placement of wood is increasing habitat (same as left)

within 5 years. Other effectiveness or performance

determined by project objectives related to site scour,

cover, bank protection, forested island protection, flow

routing, cool water refuge creation, material storage

(wood/sediment). Each project must document pre-

project habitat conditions.

Monitoring/

Reporting

frequency

Annual count; 3-4 yr.

analysis period.

Annual count of wood installations and piece inventory

(as built info); 3-4 yr. analysis period for

implementation; 5 year effectiveness monitoring

frequency from time of installation – Use pre-project

data for evaluating habitat change.

Adaptive

Management

action

<5% increase in pool

area in 5 years;

annualized ELJ totals

do not meet target.

<5% increase in jam-formed pool area in 5 years;

annualized ELJ totals do not meet target.

WOODY DEBRIS

TARGET –

DESIRED FUTURE CONDITIONS

CATEGORY/

CRITERIA

CURRENT PROPOSED

Piece quantity 80 pieces/mile (= 50

pieces/km).

80 pieces/mile (= 50 pieces/km) for channel >40

meters bankfull width; Other piece quantities for

smaller channels are based on Fox 2001.

Piece size criteria 50 ft length; 24 inches

diameter; No channel

size applicability (also

15 m length and 60 cm

diameter).

Key pieces are 50 ft. length; 24 inches diameter (or 15

m length and 60 cm diameter); LWD is at least 30 ft.

length and 12 inches diameter (or 7.6 m length and 30

cm diameter (USFS 1998)). Small wood is at least 2 m

length and 10 cm diameter (WFPB 2011).

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Literature sources NMFS 1996 (aka

“Matrix of Pathways

and Indicators”).

NMFS 1996 (aka “Matrix of Pathways and Indicators”);

USFS 1998; Fox 2001 or Fox and Bolton 2007.

Total Jam quantity

(natural & ELJs)

None. Varies by reach as either 2, 4, or 8 jams/km. Total is

1,274 jams from Table 3.

Jam criteria At least 3 pieces LWD. At least 3 key pieces LWD that touch each other with

minimum piece dimensions of 7.6 m length and 30 cm

diameter (Haas et al. 2003).

NOTE: Other criteria for wood jams include 10 pieces

(small wood criteria; WFPB 2011); 30 pieces (NOAA

2015) or 100 m2 wood jam area (NOAA 2015). These

criteria are not consistent with wood jam data

collection in Stillaguamish watershed since 2002.

Status and trend

monitoring

Every 10 years do full

wood inventory.

A wood inventory will be implemented every 10 years;

Census in NF/SF/Mainstem; Repeat sample reaches in

Pilchuck, Jim, Squire, Canyon, Upper SF, Boulder, Deer,

Rollins, Grant, French every 10 years.

Reporting

frequency

None. Every 10 years; prior to wood target adaptive

management and regional population status review.

Report updated LWD quantities and characteristics by

survey reaches (e.g. Leonetti et al. 2015).

Adaptive

Management

action

None. Revise jam implementation target quantities based on

updated key piece deficit estimates, new ELJ jams, and

natural jams compared to wood jams targets (by

reach) and relative progress among priority locations

and individual reaches.

Desired Future Condition – the desired future condition as a target is based on the recognition that a

more properly functioning quantity of woody debris, closer to regional reference conditions, will form

more pool habitats (some of which will be new cool water refuges), provide fish cover, retain gravel

bars, shield forested islands in floodplains, create more flow pathways, improve cooling through

hyporheic exchange and increase sinuosity, side channels, and backwater edge habitats. Indicators of

wood debris recovery therefore will not only be based on the quantity of placed wood, but also based

on the weight of evidence presented by an increase in the following;

Natural woody debris jams and wood loading,

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Pool count and pool frequency,

Wood-formed pools,

Pool habitat cover,

Gravel bar storage at wood jams,

Flow pathways at bankfull elevation,

Channel migration leading to greater sinuosity,

Backwater edge habitat,

Forest cover in a more natural river corridor, and

A reduction in river bank armoring.

These descriptions of future improvements in the status of conditions can all be monitored with

relatively simple indicators, collected at relatively low cost, with high precision, at time intervals to

support on-going salmon recovery information needs and adaptive decision-making.

Existing Conditions

Existing conditions are described in Table 2 using condition category bins (i.e., poor, fair, good, best).

These categories reflect quartiles of reference condition (an un-managed western Washington forest)

based on Fox (2001) for key pieces of woody debris as defined by NMFS (1996). Table 2 reports the

average number of woody debris jams observed by survey sites (2000-2011) based on total wood

quantity defined by both the NMFS key piece criterion and the Washington Forest Practices Board

(2011) watershed analysis manual. The simplified wood jam target (jams/km) by reference condition

category is proposed in the last column.

Table 2. Existing conditions. Observed jam frequency when total wood quantity by site meets poor, fair,

good, or best quantity categories based on reference conditions (Fox 2001).

Average jams/km by category for…

Category

Percentile of

reference

conditions

…NMFS Key Piece

quantity

…WFPB total

wood quantity*

Range

(jams/km)

Target

(jams/km)

for Table 3

Poor 0-25th percentile 1 .7 (23 sites) 1 .6 (19 sites) 0-2.5 2

Fair 25-50th percentile 3.2 (6 sites) 3.4 (4 sites) 2.5-4.9 4

Good 50-75th percentile 8.7 (3 sites) 4.5 (3 sites) 4.9-7.2 Combined

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Best >75th percentile 7.5 (2 site) 9 (3 sites) 7.2-15 below

Good/Best >50th percentile 8.5 (5 sites) 7 (6 sites) 4.9-15 8

* Site totals are less than previous column because small wood was not measured in 2000/2001.

NMFS Key Pieces are each >15 m length and at least 60 cm diameter (NMFS 1996)

TFW/WFPB wood pieces are >2 m length and 10 cm diameter (WFPB 2011)

Figure 1 highlights the current count of survey sites for each condition category. More than 80% of

survey sites are in the poor or fair categories. Even in un-managed reference forest conditions, woody

debris quantity may be low (Fox 2001). However, a poor category of wood quantity based on reference

conditions generally should only reflect the 25th percentile distribution of the reference range. This

wood target proposal for the Stillaguamish suggests that no more than 25 percent of survey sites should

be in a poor condition category – the 25th percentile of our data distribution. Figure 1 also highlights a

proposed future frequency (count) of survey sites that would meet the desired future condition (DFC)

for wood jam quantity per kilometer stream length.

Figure 1. Count of reaches that fit condition categories based on existing condition and proposed

desired future condition.

Using this conceptual distribution of survey sites meeting Desired Future Conditions, actual assignments

of future site performance (poor, fair, good, best) were proposed for river and stream locations

overlapping the Chinook salmon spatial distribution. In Table 3, the proposed desired future condition

(DFC Jams/km column) is shown alongside of each river or stream reach location and the existing

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performance category compared to existing conditions for the same reaches. The quantities are based

on the performance targets for individual reaches portrayed in Table 3. Proposed reaches that meet the

poor performance category are those that are currently heavily altered or geomorphically (based on

slope and channel confinement) would naturally have lower wood quantity (Fox 2001). Finally, the

estimated count of future wood jams (constructed and natural) is listed. It is worth highlighting that

even though the mainstem Stillaguamish River may have a poor wood performance assignment into the

future, the proposed 69 wood jams (Table 3) is 57 jams more than the current condition (based on 2002

data; Haas et al. 2003).

This proposal recommends that the implementation target for wood placement projects is 20% of the

estimated wood deficit or 122 wood jams (Table 4). This total is equally apportioned over all selected

reaches (Table 4), but this proposal recommends that the wood target should be implemented based on

priority locations. These locations are shown in Map 1. For example, the jam implementation target

proposed for the Upper North Fork Stillaguamish River (18 jams) reflects the large effort already made

to implement the original Plan target. As of 2015, 26 large wood jams have been constructed in the

North Fork Stillaguamish River, including woods jams built in 1998. Elsewhere, seven other wood jam

projects have been constructed toward the implementation target.

This implementation target will be applicable over the next 10 years and is greater than the original plan

target due to two factors. First, this revised wood target includes more locations for implementation

than the original plan. Second, the quantity of woody debris has decreased in the North Fork

Stillaguamish River between 2002 and 2011 (Leonetti et al. 2015), necessitating an increase in the

quantity of constructed jams or other wood placement. The proposed target, if implemented over ten

years, amounts to annualized progress of 12 constructed jams per year, which more than doubles the

current annualized rate of progress. Thus, although the 20% implementation target is somewhat

arbitrary in terms of the direct linkage to fish responses and population performance, the amount of

proposed implementation is large and will test the capacity of watershed stakeholders, more so than in

the first 10 years of Salmon Recovery Plan implementation.

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Table 3. Existing wood condition category by site according to Table 2 and desired future condition (2, 4,

or 8 jams/km). The final column is the desired future jam count based on condition assignment.

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Area

Ecosystem

component

Reach/ Existing

Category DFC Jams/km

Point estimate of

DFC jam total

CS1

HS1

MS1

MS3

MS4AMS4B

NF 1 2 8

NF2 8 90

NF3 8 70

NF4* 2 10NF5* 8 40

NF6 8 54

NF7 8 39

Small channel NF8 8 48

SF1 8 57

SF2 4 26

SF3 4 50

Upper SF 6,8 (DG) 8 182

SF 7** 8 37

Pilchuck 1 8 52

Pilchuck 2 8 38

Jim 1 2 13

Jim 2 4 29

Jim 3 4 14

Jim 4 8 77

Lower Deer (DG) 4 11

Boulder 1 8

Boulder 2 4

Squire 1 8

Squire 2 8

French 1 4

French 2 8

Canyon 1 8 87

Canyon 2 8 46

Rollins 4 6

Grant 4 9

Small channel

Small channel

Large channel/ side

channels

Large channel/ side

channels

* Parts of N4 and N5 include the confined and steeper river reach downstream from the 2014 Oso slide.

This length is excluded from NF 4 and NF5. ** Only unconfined portion of SF7.

29

32

Mainstem 2 69

Lower North Fork

Upper North Fork

Lower South Fork

Large channel/ side

channels

Large channel/ side

channels

Large channel/ side

channels

Upper South Fork

Pilchuck Creek

Other Small channel

Jim Creek

51

*DFC - Desired Future Condition

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Table 4. Wood piece and jams deficit by area/reaches and proposed 10-year implementation target for priority reaches. The total (122 jams) is

based on implementation of 20 percent of the jam deficit (609 jams). Note: not all locations from Table 3 are included in the totals below.

Area/R

eaches

Main

stem

Low

er NF

Upper NF

Low

er SF

Upper SF7

Pilchuck

1

Upper SF 6

,8

Pilchuck

2

Jim 1

/2

Jim 3

/4

DeerBould

er 1

Boulder 2

Squire 1

/2

French

1

Rollins

Grant

Total

Area/R

eaches

Current Plan Priority √ √ √

NMFS

Pieces -1765 -1504 -850 -1329 -220 -38 DG -27 -44 -51 DG 0 -9 -31 -3 -5 -11 -5887

Jams -

"custom" 57 168 91 104 30 30 Unk 25 24 22 Unk 0 9 37 3 5 4 609

ADAPTIVE 10-YEAR WOOD IMPLEMENTATION TARGET ALTERNATIVES AS OF 2015 - Anticipated to be reviewed in 2025.

Wood target objective

Jam deficit "custom" is based on jam frequency assignments to reaches as in Table 3 (2, 4, or 8 jams/km).

Deficit

Main

stem

Low

er NF

Upper NF

Low

er SF

Upper SF7

Pilchuck

1

Upper SF 6

,8

Pilchuck

2

Jim 1

/2

Jim 3

/4

DeerBould

er 1

Boulder 2

Squire 1

/2

French

Rollins

Grant

Total

Wood target objective

11 34 18 21 6 6 NA 5 5 4 NA NA 2 7 1 1 1 122

Green = Priority 1 area as in Map 4

Orange = Priority 2 area as in Map 4

Other locations are non-priority areas for near-term implementation

20% of DFC Deficit

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Map 1. Wood implementation priority reaches.

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References

Fox, M.J. 2001. A new look at the quantities and volumes of instream wood in forested basins within

Washington State. Masters Thesis. University of Washington, Seattle WA.

Fox, M.J. & Bolton, S. (2007). A regional and geomorphic reference for quantities and volumes of

instream wood in unmanaged forested basins of Washington State. North American Journal of Fisheries

Management, 27, 342–359.

Haas, A.D., Leonetti, F.E., Parker, L.T., Purser, M.D., & Rustay, M.D. (2003). Stillaguamish river bank and

physical habitat conditions survey 2002 summary report. Everett, WA: Snohomish County Public Works

Surface Water Management.

Leonetti, F.E., Rustay, M.D., Tran, T., & Purser, M.D. (2015). 2011 North Fork Stillaguamish River Habitat

Inventory and Assessment of Change since 2002. Snohomish County Public Works, Surface Water

Management. Everett, WA.

National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). (1996). Coastal salmon conservation: Working guidance for

comprehensive salmon Restoration initiatives on the Pacific Coast: Appendix II: Making endangered

species act determinations of effect for individual or grouped actions at the watershed Scale. Portland,

OR: NMFS.

Stillaguamish Implementation Review Committee (SIRC). (2005). Stillaguamish watershed Chinook

salmon recovery plan. Retrieved from

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covery%2520Plan%2520--%2520Jun.pdf&ei=Fc9sVe--

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USDA-Forest Service. (1998). Stream inventory handbook: Level I & II. USDA, Region 6, Version 9.8.

Washington Forest Practices Board (2011). Standard Methodology for Conducting Watershed Analysis -

Board Manual. Version 5. Washington Department of Natural Resources, Olympia, WA.