Eagle River Inventory and Assessment

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3. conducting a monitoring program designed to answer specific questions linking the goals and actions, and 4, updating and improving management based on program results, ES.1 PUBLIC INVOLUEMENT 1 STAKEHOLDERS In laying the groundwork for the Edgle River Inventory dnd Assessment, the Eagle River Watershed Council conducted extensive stakeholder outreach to identify and better define the most pressing issues and potential restoration activities throughout the basin prior to CSU involvement. The CSU project team subsequently communicated with hundreds of individuals from watershed stakeholders to key scientific experts. This work, along with the previous efforts of the Eagle River Watershed Council, were instrumental in identifying critical questions about the watershed as well as identifying the set of candidate restoration projects, This approach was augmented through ~ield reconnaissance, statistical analysis, and a multi-criterion decision analysis to rank the ecological effectiveness of potential projects. ES.2 WATERSHED RESTORATION PRINCIPLES IN THE EAGLE RIVER INVENTORY AND ASSESSMENT Previous watershed management and restoration activities throughout the U.S. have been plagued by an emphasis on localized tactics that are not part of an overarching strategy addressing the underlying causes of degradation at the system level. While restoring a reach of river may provide a tangible sense of accomplishment, such projects often have little system-level benefit, especially if the restored reach has inadequate streamflows or is contaminated with pollution, Alternatively, identifying and removing chronic stressors at the system level and strategically prioritizing the restoration of segments that reconnect existing high quality habitats, such projects can have synergistic benefits for large segments of the watershed, Thus, ~o b~ succ~ssful i~ t~~ lon~ ~~r~m, wat~rsh~~ ~~sto~a~ion ~°~qu~r~s a focus o~ p~ot~cti~~ ~n~ r~sto~°~n~ ~h~ w~tershed processes th~t cre~te ~nd sust~in h~bit~ts as ~ppos~d to ~~~im~~~~n~ h~bit~~s ~si~~ a~i~c~~ ~n~al, `ba~d~ai~' approach ~o ach~~v~ a s~atic con~itiom. Scientific literature and numerous case studies indicate the likelihood of successful watershed restoration is greatly improved by adhering to these ten principles: l. Address the causes of problems and not just symptoms, i,e., focus on ecosystem processes rather than achieving a particular condition. 2. Recognize many scales and potentially limiting factors, such as nonpoint source pollution or chronic flow shortages. A long-term, large-scale, multidisciplinary perspective is critical. 3. Work with rather than against natural watershed processes and reconnect severed linkages (e,g., channels and floodplains), 4. Clearly define goals and make both sustainability and enhancing ecological integrity explicit goals. 5. Utilize the best available science in predictive assessments that are risk-based and decision-oriented. For inclusive decision-making, predictive assessments should link system manipulations to probable outcomes of primary interest to stakeholders: clean water, productive fisheries, other valued biota, reliable water supply, recreation, and aesthetics. 6. Honestly identify and openly debate key knowledge gaps and uncertainties, Adopt an action-oriented principle that ensures that the decision-making exercise will lead to results. 7. Make decisions in a transparent, organized framework that: • structures the problem clearly, • provides a ranking of the options even though the uncertainties may not be resolved in the foreseeable future, • involves stakeholders, • documents and justi~ies the decision process to stakeholders, and Eagle River Inventory and Assessment iii