Fish and Culverts

This article is a great representation of the problems with the culvert replacement work. This project is a five year effort spending over $4 million. But nowhere in the article is any estimate of how many more fish we will have once the project is complete.

Now expand this to the statewide culvert replacement effort. Taxpayers are footing a multi billion dollar bill and what are they getting? I've never seen even the highest level estimate of the return on this investment.
 
The habitat reconnection resulting from the state-led culvert replacements may not result in a single additional fish available for Washington anglers to kill and eat. But it might just keep some species in our state from being extirpated, locally anyway, for a while longer. The alternative is to not correct the mistakes that were made by blocking off thousands of miles of migratory fish habitat. I like fish, so I’d rather see taxes used to reconnect habitat than used for a bunch of other stuff I care about much less, or think is actually a horrible thing that we shouldn’t be doing at all.
 
davew said:
This article is a great representation of the problems with the culvert replacement work. This project is a five year effort spending over $4 million. But nowhere in the article is any estimate of how many more fish we will have once the project is complete.

Now expand this to the statewide culvert replacement effort. Taxpayers are footing a multi billion dollar bill and what are they getting? I've never seen even the highest level estimate of the return on this investment.
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Have you done an internet search for environmental impact studies? Have you contacted the agency to ask questions? Your post makes a logical leap from “this newspaper article has no info on fish impact” to “no one did any research on fish impact.”
 
Burt Dagger said:
Have you done an internet search for environmental impact studies? Have you contacted the agency to ask questions? Your post makes a logical leap from “this newspaper article has no info on fish impact” to “no one did any research on fish impact."
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I did a search asking about the EIS estimate of increased number of fish due to the project and the result was...

"Environmental impact statements and project assessments for Snohomish County's culvert replacements generally quantify benefits in linear feet or miles of reconnected aquatic habitat rather than providing a specific numerical estimate of an increased individual fish count."

Are they counting on the same result that dam removal has had on the Elwah and Klamath?
 
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There's a similar passage project along the creek parallel to our access road. Possibly an upgrade from culvert to bridge. Not sure whats in the creek, but coho and cutts seem likely.

In this case it's also a safety issue since the grade "dip" on the main road where it crosses the creek, is used as the local roller coaster. Even though its a blind spot, idiots come flying into it 60+. Including heavy load trucks. Leaving and entering our road is interesting to say the least.
 
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There’s simply too many other variables in an anadromous fish life history to say that reconnecting habitat X will result in n number of fish. It’s just not how it works. These projects are about reintroducing the opportunity for the habitat to support fish again, and it’s because scientists are truthful about scientific uncertainty that there aren’t made up feel good numbers out there associated with these projects. But, in an age where it’s apparently okay to fabricate numbers to support one’s given cause, maybe they should just make some sh*t up for these projects.
This stream crossing replacement is expected to result in 38,000 additional coho eggs deposited in the gravel a year after replacement, which could stuff Creek X with 1,693 returning adult coho salmon in 4 years.

A generation or two of people decided to save money in the short term and build unsustainably. Now there’s a bunch of issues catching up to us all and the fixes aren’t cheap or easy.

It turns out that the new crossings are more resilient to the increasing peak flows we are seeing in PNW streams, so there are other benefits to taking care of failing infrastructure. Those long term resiliency benefits don’t always get mentioned in the culvert articles.
 
Matt B said:
There’s simply too many other variables in an anadromous fish life history to say that reconnecting habitat X will result in n number of fish. It’s just not how it works. These projects are about reintroducing the opportunity for the habitat to support fish again, and it’s because scientists are truthful about scientific uncertainty that there aren’t made up feel good numbers out there associated with these projects. But, in an age where it’s apparently okay to fabricate numbers to support one’s given cause, maybe they should just make some sh*t up for these projects.
This stream crossing replacement is expected to result in 38,000 additional coho eggs deposited in the gravel a year after replacement, which could stuff Creek X with 1,693 returning adult coho salmon in 4 years.

A generation or two of people decided to save money in the short term and build unsustainably. Now there’s a bunch of issues catching up to us all and the fixes aren’t cheap or easy.

It turns out that the new crossings are more resilient to the increasing peak flows we are seeing in PNW streams, so there are other benefits to taking care of failing infrastructure. Those long term resiliency benefits don’t always get mentioned in the culvert articles.
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I beg to differ Matt. First though, let me say that I also support the action of reconnecting fish habitat. We have loads of data regarding fish productivity per unit area, i.e., the rule of thumb that one square meter of suitable juvenile coho habitat produces 0.5 coho smolts. We have similar values for juvenile steelhead production, separated by stream gradient section. And we have data converting smolts to adult recruitment over a wide range of survival rates. Sure there is uncertainty, and there is more habitat that is above or below average than average, but then that's what averages account for. There is a different reason for not estimating increased salmon production resulting from culvert replacement.

I think the reason the co-managers chose to report lineal feet of habitat reconnected is because they don't want to inform taxpayers that the culvert projects are pissing millions and billions of dollars down a rat hole relative to future anadromous fish production. For instance, the co-managers have no plans to increase spawning escapement goals to account for the added potential productivity that should be realized by habitat re-connection. In some meetings the co-managers have admitted that any increases in salmon production will be cropped off by harvest and not by increased spawning escapement. I don't think it's a matter of scientists being truthful about scientific uncertainty as much as it's a matter of masking fish management intentions.

The reason the treaty tribes brought the culvert case to court was never about increasing salmon production, although that would be a beneficial side effect. The federal court wanted the treaty tribes to bring a specific case regarding harm to salmon habitat as part of U.S. v. WA, Phase II. Quantifying harm and fish reduction is difficult to prove in a court trial format. Quantifying lost lineal feet of former salmon habitat due to impassible culverts is easy, so the treaty tribes chose that as the low hanging fruit to pursue in Boldt, Phase II.

The result is reconnected habitat that provides some fish benefits, probably more to sea run cutthroat trout than to salmon generally. And larger sized culverts and bridges that replace under-sized culverts will, as you stated, do a far better job of passing peak runoff events, thereby significantly reducing damage to road infrastructure. So hooray for reduced flood damage and potentially measurable increases in cutthroat trout productivity. But don't get your hopes up for increases in coho populations, and we all know that damn few Chinook salmon use tributaries the size of which are selected for culvert replacement.
 
These culvert projects, generally speaking, are the "right thing" to do. There's no question we have destroyed or cut off access to a LOT of anadromous spawning habitat with non-present and non-functional culverts. No doubt, if we're to recover (or even sustain) wild fish populations, the restored habitat (some of) these projects are creating will be essential to the cause.

That said, there are two things I believe will prevent these projects from achieving anything but good feelings:

First, I personally whine a lot to my friends that no matter how much habitat we restore, we'll never see more fish (harvestable or otherwise) until the harvest co-managers increase overall regional escapement goals where these projects are happening so there might be additional fish to utilize the restored habitat. Sure, there could be cases where fish using restored habitats might have slightly better spawning yields (for various reasons), but for the most part, the same number of spawners will produce the same number of offspring, no matter where they are spawning. If we want to see more fish in the future from these projects, we need to let more adults survive to seed the restored habitat. Short of that, while it might feel good to see a pair or two of wild coho spawning in a restored stretch of a creek, there won't be any meaningful recovery benefit.

Second, many of the project locations are being selected simply because they are in close proximity to other projects and are located near or along highways. This makes the logistics easier and cheaper, but it doesn't always result in projects that are likely to have the desired impact. Building access to creeks that have never historically been used by salmon won't accomplish anything, and neither will removing a fish passage issue in a stream with one or more other barriers (that aren't being removed) a mile upstream. This doesn't make improving habitat a bad idea; it just means the potential benefit to wild fish is less than it could be for the money being invested.

Anyway, I favor these projects in general, but I have serious doubts they will succeed in restoring lost populations until we face the reality that we simply kill too many salmon (mostly in the ocean) under the current management paradigm, and nobody is talking about that, as usual.
 
Salmo_g said:
i don't think it's a matter of scientists being truthful about scientific uncertainty as much as it's a matter of masking fish management intentions.
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The scientists and engineers designing and monitoring fish passage projects are not making decisions about, nor are they usually even involved in fish harvest management in any meaningful way. Those are different groups of people, and I also don’t think it’s fair to ignore or at least not mention the fact that there are both regulated and unregulated ocean fisheries chipping away at potential returns, and the fact that ocean indicators, in recent years, do not consistently “indicate” salmon productivity the way they seemed to in the past (“global weirding”). It would be setting up disappointment to predict and publish an increased escapement due to a single or series of projects. Too many things can happen, predictable and random. A landslide could happen upstream, a tanker truck could crash and spill de-icer, a Russian ship could Hoover up half the fish at sea, the copepods could disappear for some reason…
 
Salmo_g said:
I beg to differ Matt. First though, let me say that I also support the action of reconnecting fish habitat. We have loads of data regarding fish productivity per unit area, i.e., the rule of thumb that one square meter of suitable juvenile coho habitat produces 0.5 coho smolts. We have similar values for juvenile steelhead production, separated by stream gradient section. And we have data converting smolts to adult recruitment over a wide range of survival rates. Sure there is uncertainty, and there is more habitat that is above or below average than average, but then that's what averages account for. There is a different reason for not estimating increased salmon production resulting from culvert replacement.

I think the reason the co-managers chose to report lineal feet of habitat reconnected is because they don't want to inform taxpayers that the culvert projects are pissing millions and billions of dollars down a rat hole relative to future anadromous fish production. For instance, the co-managers have no plans to increase spawning escapement goals to account for the added potential productivity that should be realized by habitat re-connection. In some meetings the co-managers have admitted that any increases in salmon production will be cropped off by harvest and not by increased spawning escapement. I don't think it's a matter of scientists being truthful about scientific uncertainty as much as it's a matter of masking fish management intentions.

The reason the treaty tribes brought the culvert case to court was never about increasing salmon production, although that would be a beneficial side effect. The federal court wanted the treaty tribes to bring a specific case regarding harm to salmon habitat as part of U.S. v. WA, Phase II. Quantifying harm and fish reduction is difficult to prove in a court trial format. Quantifying lost lineal feet of former salmon habitat due to impassible culverts is easy, so the treaty tribes chose that as the low hanging fruit to pursue in Boldt, Phase II.

The result is reconnected habitat that provides some fish benefits, probably more to sea run cutthroat trout than to salmon generally. And larger sized culverts and bridges that replace under-sized culverts will, as you stated, do a far better job of passing peak runoff events, thereby significantly reducing damage to road infrastructure. So hooray for reduced flood damage and potentially measurable increases in cutthroat trout productivity. But don't get your hopes up for increases in coho populations, and we all know that damn few Chinook salmon use tributaries the size of which are selected for culvert replacement.
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Thank you for this informed and informative post!
 
Matt B said:
But, in an age where it’s apparently okay to fabricate numbers to support one’s given cause, maybe they should just make some sh*t up for these projects.
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It is not OK to fabricate numbers
Shad said:
This doesn't make improving habitat a bad idea; it just means the potential benefit to wild fish is less than it could be for the money being invested.
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Should an agency be designated to receive, and it be mandatory(!!!!) to publish tracking metrics on basin restoration (and other environmental programs like CCA)?

Salmo_g said:
I think the reason the co-managers chose to report lineal feet of habitat reconnected is because they don't want to inform taxpayers that the culvert projects are pissing millions and billions of dollars down a rat hole relative to future anadromous fish production. For instance, the co-managers have no plans to increase spawning escapement goals to account for the added potential productivity that should be realized by habitat re-connection. In some meetings the co-managers have admitted that any increases in salmon production will be cropped off by harvest and not by increased spawning escapement. I don't think it's a matter of scientists being truthful about scientific uncertainty as much as it's a matter of masking fish management intentions.
Click to expand...

I also am supportive of effective fisheries restoration through habitat enhancement and other solutions. But recently the public was informed of a massive recreational fishery enhancement failure with a very expensive and even a very environmentally unfriendly mitigation because the project didn't go through a proper scaleup testing phase before full committal. Should metrics have at least determined continuance based on metrics against goals? Should the public who is ultimately financing it be be skeptical, and kept informed of the (f)actual numbers?

Maybe someone here knows but the searches I did regarding the 39 year Nisqually basin restoration show no cumulative grand total known for the entire span of the watershed and estuary restoration efforts. Individual milestones such as specific land acquisitions by the Nisqually Land Trust and the Nisqually Indian Tribe reaching nearly $10 million. Other individual federal recovery grants are tracked separately. The 2009 Nisqually Estuary Restoration Project at the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge cost roughly $13 million. Land purchases by the Nisqually Indian Tribe and the Nisqually Land Trust added tens of millions more, including a $9.6 million joint acquisition along Busy Wild Creek, and the Mashel River (that prohibits recreational angling for resident trout).

The (AI) search results did reveal positive annual spawning escapement and multi-year trend data by species in the Nisqually basin during the restoration program.
Chinook Salmon
    • Status: Listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).
    • Trends & Escapement: Natural-origin productivity remains depressed relative to habitat potential, though hatchery programs (via Clear Creek Hatchery) add roughly 12,000 adult returns annually. The natural escapement goal benchmark is set around 1,100 spawners to promote a locally adapted wild run. [1, 2, 3]
Chum Salmon
    • Status: Generally robust and showing strong multi-year recovery indicators.
    • Trends & Escapement: Recent annual escapements have exceeded 90,000 fish in top-performing years, ranking among the strongest returns in decades due to conservative management, habitat restoration, and favorable ocean conditions. [1]
Steelhead
    • Status: Severely impacted historically, crashing in the 1990s.
    • Trends & Escapement: Wild winter steelhead hit lows of 269 spawners in 2012, but rebounded to over 1,000–2,000 fish following strict wild-status protections. The Nisqually River was designated a wild steelhead gene bank by WDFW to eliminate hatchery interbreeding. [1]
Coho and Pink Salmon
  • Trends & Escapement: Coho see steady auxiliary returns, with Clear Creek Hatchery contributing up to 4,000 hatchery-origin adults alongside natural spawners. Pink salmon use the system in alternating (even-year) cycles with moderate health indexing. [1, 2]
 
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The attachment describes a well-defined concept. The idea is that salmon populations that can access the entire watershed are more resilient to environmental variability than those that don't. This tendency serves to keep populations nominally stable even as individual subpopulations fluctuate widely. The concept has merit when considering the thousands of culverts in the Puget Sound watershed.
 

Attachments

Shad said:
These culvert projects, generally speaking, are the "right thing" to do. There's no question we have destroyed or cut off access to a LOT of anadromous spawning habitat with non-present and non-functional culverts. No doubt, if we're to recover (or even sustain) wild fish populations, the restored habitat (some of) these projects are creating will be essential to the cause.

That said, there are two things I believe will prevent these projects from achieving anything but good feelings:

First, I personally whine a lot to my friends that no matter how much habitat we restore, we'll never see more fish (harvestable or otherwise) until the harvest co-managers increase overall regional escapement goals where these projects are happening so there might be additional fish to utilize the restored habitat. Sure, there could be cases where fish using restored habitats might have slightly better spawning yields (for various reasons), but for the most part, the same number of spawners will produce the same number of offspring, no matter where they are spawning. If we want to see more fish in the future from these projects, we need to let more adults survive to seed the restored habitat. Short of that, while it might feel good to see a pair or two of wild coho spawning in a restored stretch of a creek, there won't be any meaningful recovery benefit.

Second, many of the project locations are being selected simply because they are in close proximity to other projects and are located near or along highways. This makes the logistics easier and cheaper, but it doesn't always result in projects that are likely to have the desired impact. Building access to creeks that have never historically been used by salmon won't accomplish anything, and neither will removing a fish passage issue in a stream with one or more other barriers (that aren't being removed) a mile upstream. This doesn't make improving habitat a bad idea; it just means the potential benefit to wild fish is less than it could be for the money being invested.

Anyway, I favor these projects in general, but I have serious doubts they will succeed in restoring lost populations until we face the reality that we simply kill too many salmon (mostly in the ocean) under the current management paradigm, and nobody is talking about that, as usual.
Click to expand...

I agree with much of what you said. It was my understanding that in some cases, the tribes and the state have discussed which projects to do that will result in the biggest bang fish wise for the dollars spent.

mediate.com

WA’s costly salmon recovery effort heads toward mediation

Leaders from Western Washington tribes and state officials have agreed to enter mediation about removing salmon migration barriers, reviving a decadeslong court case over tribal treaty fishing rights and habitat damage from generations of building state highways. Lawyers for the two sides asked...
mediate.com mediate.com

One other thing I’ve wondered. Is there any seeding of the creeks with hatchery fish once the project is completed? I’m not saying that hatchery fish are the total answer, but if you replace a culvert on a creek with low returns, could a one time planting of coho or chums in it help jump start things? I’d prefer Mother Nature to do the work but there are times when even she could use some help.
Remember also that back in the day many creeks got something planted in them.
SF
 
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I can't find online literature at this point but there was a grant for replacing all non-passable culverts in WA South of the Snake in the mid '90's. The feds, state and tribes were involved. The college set up a GIS basemap, overlayed road and streams, and set points at the intersections with pertinent attributes.
Crews then visited, assessed and prioritized each. In private practice at that time we helped survey existing then staked design where necessary. That was one of my teaching example datasets in GIS later. It was done by about 2005?
Lots of folks involved, good work. It was done in the name of salmon habitat improvement but I think it has benefited the trout and incidentally I think the bulls in the little upper reaches have really benefited.
 
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