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Idaho River Conservation Initiative: Enhancing Fish Habitat & Protecting Water Resources

Spearheading a tributary-wide treatment approach, implementing fish screens, passage improvements, and water conservation to support steelhead, Bull Trout, and Cutthroat Trout populations. Engaging in monitoring, evaluation, R&D programs, and various projects like the Mahala Ditch and Kenny Creek Reconnection. Addressing concerns on water rights enforcement, federal response times, and sustainable funding for water conservation. Collaborating with conservation groups and witnessing a shift towards conservation awareness in Idaho's demographics.

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Idaho River Conservation Initiative: Enhancing Fish Habitat & Protecting Water Resources

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  1. 2006 Update Idaho Screen Program

  2. Present Status • Most major river corridors have been treated by diversion consolidations, ditch eliminations, passage improvements, water conservation, and screening. • After a three year BPA funding cycle of being restricted to only installing screens and fish passage, we are returning to a tributary wide treatment approach. • Moratorium on new water rights was lifted.

  3. Tributary Focus • Spawning streams for wild steelhead • Spawning streams for Bull Trout and Westslope Cutthroat Trout • Anadromous juvenile rearing streams • Provide late summer thermal refuge • Vital life component for fluvial trout • Provide flushing flows downstream

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  5. Monitoring & Evaluation • Stream Surveys • PIT Tag Interrogations • Weir operations • Redd counts

  6. Recent Evaluations • 30+ Stream Surveys. • Alaska Steeppass ladder evaluation on the SChaC-08/8A diversion. • PIT tag interrogators on lower Lemhi River fish screen bypasses. • Hydraulic and fisheries evaluations on every newly deployed structure. • Limited evaluation of the Gooby Bubbler screen using rainbow fry.

  7. R & D Program • Twin rotating cylinder solar powered screen with a four inch bottle brush cleaner. Attaches directly to a pipeline. • Paddlewheel operated horizontal traveling belt screen. • Double bay concrete paddlewheel driven point of diversion wiper screen. • Additional paddlewheel design work involving dimensional analysis.

  8. FRIMA Work • Mahala Ditch project near McCall, Idaho. • Two rotary drum screens in the Bear River drainage in Southeast, Idaho. • Currently working on a Panther Creek ditch consolidation project with the local Model Watershed program.

  9. Squaw CreekScreens and Passage • Installed fish screens on all six diversions. • Improved fish passage at two diversions. • Eliminated problems with wolves and researchers.

  10. Kenny Creek Reconnection Project

  11. Concerns • IDWR enforcement of water rights. • Federal land management agency action response times. • Cost share availability for Federal funding. • High cost to conserve water. • Absentee landowners. • Subdivided lands & multiple irrigators.

  12. Outlook • Conservation groups such as Nature Conservancy, Friends of the Tetons, and Trout Unlimited are energizing locals in SE Idaho to participate in fisheries projects. • Growing group that believe “Any screen is better than no screen.” • Farm Bill grows larger each year and has more funding for conservation including fish screens. • Cabela’s in Boise. Demographics are changing. More interest in conservation.

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