FISH STORY: Idaho’s Top Ten 2010 Trout Salmon & Steelhead Stories
Inaugurated last year, here is Idaho Trout Unlimited’s top ten trout salmon and steelhead stories for Idaho for the year 2010. We look back over the year an identify some of the more important stories, reported and otherwise, affecting the status and future of Idaho’s magnificent salmonids.
1. A record number of adult Snake River sockeye salmon return to Redfish Lake, and a large number of steelhead run in 2010 contrasts with the moribund chinook salmon returns and provides a back drop to the protracted litigation over the Federal hydropower dams. A decision from the Federal Judge is expected in early 2011.
2. The US Fish and Wildlife Service designates critical habitat for bull trout. The proposal, hearings, and the FWS decision all happen in the calendar year. The decision replaces an earlier designation that a Federal judge had found improperly influenced by Bush Administration political meddling. Some 8,880 stream miles and 170,218 acres of lakes or reservoirs in Idaho are now protected critical habitat for bull trout and other wild trout share the benefits.
3. Led by the Henry’s Fork Foundation with an assist from Trout Unlimited, Idahoans rise up to defend the Henry’s Fork of Snake River and Harriman State Park by opposing Governor Otter’s proposal to dismantle the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation. The swift forming and widespread opposition stops the Governor’s proposal cold. The Harriman family and the state had agreed more than fifty years ago to accept the Railroad Ranch as part of a state park system as long as Idaho maintained a professionally managed agency. The Governor’s proposal to dismantle the agency was made in ignorance of this long standing deed. And while there are many different interests who came to the defense of Idaho’s state parks system, the foundation was formed by the world-renown wild trout fishery of the Henry’s Fork that ignited the Henry’s Fork Foundation and Trout Unlimited to lead the charge.
4. The Idaho Legislature’s and Idaho Water Resource Board’s desires to rebuild the Teton Dam gets funding but opposition to the idea from numerous groups lead the Bureau of Reclamation to collaborate on a more broad-based agreement that can address water supply needs and protect the fisheries of the Upper Snake River and Teton Canyon. ”While some might think eastern Idaho is in need of additional surface water storage, there are many alternatives that are safer, more cost effective, faster to implement, and better for our natural resources than rebuilding Teton Dam,” says Kim Trotter, director of TU’s Idaho Water Project. “TU will continue to work with the agencies and other stakeholders to identify these alternatives.”
5. Several habitat improvement projects reach critical mass in the long-standing Lemhi River. More than 75 ranchers in the Upper Salmon River Basin are participating in efforts to restore fish habitat for endangered salmon, steelhead and resident trout. The Upper Salmon Basin Watershed Program has completed more than 120 projects overall since the early 1990s. The Iron Creek restoration project is one of the largest restoration projects ever undertaken in the basin, involving more than 11 local, state and federal agencies. Another project protects 2,400 acres of habitat in the basin thanks to ranchers and groups like the Nature Conservancy.
Trout Unlimited is also involved with restoration of Little Springs Creek in the watershed.
6. The spring of 2010 for the first time in more than a half-century, adult Bonneville cutthroat trout are able to swim up Fish Haven Creek on the Idaho side of Bear Lake. And, righting the ways of their predecessors, people made it happen. Trout Unlimited took the lead on the Fish Haven Project.
“Ninety-eight percent of the fish that entered Fish Haven Creek to spawn never made it past a 280-foot-long barrier low on the creek,” said Kirk Dahle, a TU fisheries biologist out of Logan who oversaw the project. “The barrier was replaced in late 2009 and we are seeing spawning cutthroat between 18 and 30 inches and 6 to 8 pounds for the first time in around 60 years.” — Salt Lake Tribune.
7. Here’s an equation for success: start with a stream, add one bridge, subtract three culverts, and it equals 57 miles of new habitat. The Mountain Home Highway District and the Boise National Forest cooperate on a project to replace a triple culvert over the Feather River in Featherville and open up 57 miles of river habitat between headwater streams and the upper South Fork of the Boise River.
8. Trout Unlimited’s community-based stream restoration work in the across the Boise River basin becomes more complicated with proposed developments in the basin. A proposed molybdenum mine in the headwaters of Grimes Creek is raising concerns over potential threats to the long-term health of the Boise River, now a source for as much as 20 percent of Boise’s drinking water. Proposals to build additional dams in the headwaters for supplemental water supply include some options that present an existential threat to migratory bull trout.
9. IDFG adopts most significant change in fishing rules in decades, eliminating some seasonal closures on many rivers in the state. Hundreds of miles of streams are now open all year for fishing. The simplification of the rules is designed to encourage more people to take up fishing as a past time. Aside from some concerns over certain local waters, the regulations achieve final adoption with little opposition.
10. The Recovery Act, also known as the Stimulus legislation, provided funds for millions of dollars of road and trail work in Idaho to create jobs, and in the process dozens of miles of Idaho streams benefit. Numerous projects replaced culverts that blocked fish passage and some work reduced erosion into streams that cause water pollution and have negative effects on fish habitat. Additional projects have improved trail access to a number of Idaho’s fishing waters. Most of this work was on National Forest lands in Idaho and will have long-term benefits for wild trout and fishing.
