BPA Instream Habitat Projects Completed within Asotin Creek Watershed, 1999-2001 Final Report.

The Asotin County Conservation District (ACCD) is the primary entity coordinating habitat projects on both private and public lands within the Asotin Creek watershed. The watershed covers approximately 325 square miles in the Blue Mountains of southeastern Washington in WRIA 35. According to WDFW's Priority WRIA's by At-Risk Stock Significance Map, it is the highest priority WRIA in southeastern WA. Summer steelhead, bull trout, and Snake River spring chinook salmon which are listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), are present in the watershed. WDFW manages it as a Wild Steelhead Reserve, because no hatchery fish have been released here since 1997. The ACCD has been working with landowners, Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Washington State Conservation Commission (WCC), Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), U.S. Forest Service, Pomeroy Ranger District (USFS), Nez Perce Tribe (NPT), Department of Ecology (DOE), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to address habitat projects in Asotin County. Local students, volunteers and Salmon Corps Members have been instrumental in the success of the Model Watershed Program on Asotin Creek. ACCD began coordinating habitat projects in 1995 with the help of BPA funding. Approximately two more » hundred seventy-six projects have been implemented as of 1999. The Washington State Legislature was successful in securing funding for endangered salmon and steelhead recovery throughout the State in 1998. While these issues were new to most of the State, southeastern Washington had been dealing with endangered fall and spring chinook salmon since 1994. The Asotin Creek In-Stream Habitat Project teamed BPA and Governor's Salmon Recovery Funding on four instream habitat projects in the Asotin Creek Watershed. These projects provide complex instream habitat for steelhead, bull trout and spring chinook in the stream. 38 pools were created as a result of these instream projects with 860 ft of LWD utilized for habitat. « less