7427 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

-table 1. Initial Missouri River fish and wildlife habitat mitigation sites. in Nebr.15lu. ranked by priority. Acreages shown represent optimum amounts. Development would be possible, however, on smaller acreages without jeopard- izing the benefits derived. Cost includes acquisition in fee-title at 51,000 per acre plus 5100,000 per site t" develop the necessary mitigation. Cost Site no. Site name River mile Acreage x $100,000 1 Boyer Chute 638-633 2,600 2.7 2 Goose Island 583-578 1,375 1.5 3 Lower Civil Bend 574-568 2,800 2.9 4 Tobacco Island 589-586 1,560 1.6 5 Honey Creek Complex 541-537 1,690 1.7 6 Van Horn Bend 578-574 8SO 1.0 7 Hamburg Bend 556-552 1,700 1.8 8 Lake Quinnebaugh 686 1,500 1.5 concert with dike notching should selVe to initiate the erosion necessary to re- cover the old configuration without additional management assistance. Native aquatic vegetation should re- establish as natural hydrologic condi- tions re-develop. Native vegetations should be allowed or assisted to re- establish on terrestrial sites adjacent to the wetlands to simulate the inter- spersion and successional stages that occurred naturally. This habitat would contribute additional organic material and primary energy to the riparian ecosystem, resulting in an expanded food web and enhanced secondary pro- ductivity. Although agricultural pro- duction on the floodplain can reach 9 metric tonnes per hectare per year (tl ha/year) of biomass (Ovington et a1. 1963), much of this production is phys- ically removed from the cropped field (floodplain) in the form of grain, forage, or domestic livestock. Native plant communities, which are flooded pe- riodically, can contribute from 6 t/hal year (for grasslands) to 16 t/ha/year (for cattail marshes) of biomass to the ecosystem (Hesse et al. 1986). Water management is an important component of a system-wide plan of mitigation. Temporal flow should co- incide with the natural climatic varia- tion in the basin. Although the up- stream reservoirs should continue to provide necessary flood control, their operation should be adjusted to allow for some higher spring discharges. Present water management criteria typ- ically include storing spring runoff through early summer to prevent in- undation of floodplain cropland. This stored water then is released during late summer and early autumn, often January - February J989 inundating the same land protected earlier in the year. This discharge reg- ulation schedule is detrimental to the Missouri River fishery, because most species spawn in spring and early sum- mer in response to high flows. In ad- dition, aquatic insects, which selVe as food sources for these fishes, require high water in the spring for optimum reproduction. In the past, high spring water levels assured that a large num- ber of metamorphosing aquatic insects were present during the summer and autumn to provide a ready food supply for most fish and other vertebrates in the Missouri River ecosystem. Re-es- tablishing the natural timing of high flows, although moderated to allow for flood control needs, could dramatically improve sUlVival of the young-of-the- year fish and is essential to restoring the habitat value of the riparian eco- system as a whole. Research is pres- ently underway that should help to identify the timing and extent of these releases. Change will be acceptable only if we are successful in identifying a regimen satisfactory, in some degree, to all users of the river and its flood- plain. Funding: How Can It be Achieved? A Trust Fund could be established with all or part of the authorized $51.9 million. Additional mitigation needs could be funded through additional congressional appropriations or through an approach patterned after the Pacific Northwest Electric Power Planning and ConselVation Act of 1980 (16 U.S.C., 839 et seq.). This Act created and di- rected the Northwest Power Planning Council (Council) to develop and adopt a ". . . program to protect, mitigate, and enhance fish and wildlife including related spawning grounds and habitat, on the Columbia River and its tribu- taries." The Act further directed that the". . . program, to the greatest extent possible, shall be designed to deal with that river and its tributaries as a sys- tem. " The Council, composed of represen- tatives from the four states in the Co- lumbia River basin, was assigned re- sponsibility for developing a fish and wildlife recovery program. liThe peo- ple of the Northwest, rather than Con- gress and distant federal agencies, are given an opportunity to decide what should be done to protect their fish and wildlife resources and mitigate the hann caused by decades of hydroelec- tric development." The Act also gave the ". . . Bonneville Power Adminis- tration the authority and responsibility to use its legal and financial resources to protect, mitigate and enhance fish and wildlife." The overriding principle was clear: ". . . fish and wildlife inter- ests and power interests shall cooper- ate as partners in the development, operation, and management of the Co- lumbia River hydroelectric system for the benefit of all citizens of the Pacific Northwest." One of the more signifi- cant elements of the Council's fish and wildlife recovery program was a "Water Budget" designed to improve stream- flow and thus enhance migration of Columbia River fishes. The Columbia River mitigation pro- gram prescribed funding sources: in- cluding federal appropriations and power revenue surcharges. The Coun- cil estimated that implementation of their entire program could cost about $700 million over the next 20 years. This would result in increased costs of approximately 0.05 cents per kilowatt hour of energy sold by Bonneville Power Administration (Northwest Power Planning Council 1982). The electrical generating capacity of the Federal Columbia River Power Sys- tem was 13,000 megawatts in 1975. By comparison, the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Project hydroelectric plants have a current capacity of 3,000 megawatts. This power is marketed by the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) and the Southwest Power Administra- 13