The Bonneville Power Administration has played a focal role in Columbia Basin mitigation efforts and has the most comprehensive information on completed and on-going mitigation projects of any federal players in the region. Their system, known as the Environmental Management Information System (EMIS) contains information on project descriptions, status, cost, locations of work, and types of work. BPA is in the process of digitizing the locations of project activities which will facilitate incorporation of this data into a GIS system. This system is an expansion of a system which was formerly known as the Project Management Information System (PMIS). BPA also maintains a database used for project planning and prioritization. This system is known as the Annual Implementation Work Plan database. BPA is currently developing on-line www access to it’s project data and has indicated that it will be available by June, 1997. That system would allow ad-hoc queries and downloads of the data items that met the needs of the StreamNet project database. A conceptual model of the data structure is shown in Appendix A.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been another major player in Columbia Basin mitigation efforts. Primary activities funded by the Corps include modifications of mainstem dams to improve passage conditions, hatcheries (Lower Snake River Compensation Program (LSRCP)), research, spillway modifications, and juvenile fish transportation. LSRCP funding alone currently exceeds $12 million per year. The Corps does not maintain a consolidated database of this type of information, so it would require a significant level of effort to assemble it.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management have each conducted significant numbers of fishery restoration projects. They, too, lack a common repository for information about activities they have sponsored. Select national forests do have project database systems that appear to be quite advanced.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs, the member tribes of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, and other tribal groups in the region could all be possible sources for fishery mitigation project data. At this time, no comprehensive source of tribal data is available.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife conducted an inventory of stream habitat improvement projects on private, industrial forest lands for the Oregon Forest Resources Institute and completed a report on these projects in May, 1996. The database they created contains information on nearly 190 habitat improvement projects costing a an estimated $3.2 million. The database is currently being integrated with Oregon’s Coastal Salmon Restoration Initiative (see appendix B) and will be an ideal, on-going information source for Oregon. This data is readily available and could be integrated into a projects database with a minimum of effort.

Idaho, Montana, and Washington have not undertaken data compilation efforts such as that described in Oregon. There have, however, been several restoration projects in each of these states. Besides projects related to private timber lands, there have been projects associated with federal hydropower project licensing and re-licensing, and projects conducted by private and community groups. IDFG has been cooperating with other state agencies, the USFS, and others to create a prototype project database for the Clearwater drainage. Water quality issues appear to be the highest priority for this effort.

Given the relative scarcity of consistent and readily available project data, it is our recommendation to initiate development of a region-wide project database, using Bonneville’s EMIS as a prototype database structure. This database would include data on both restoration projects and watershed projects.

A conceptual diagram for the database is shown in Appendix A. The primary table in this structure is the PROJECTS table which contains general information about the project including the description, the contractor, the total cost, the primary focus, the targeted species, etc. The PROJECTS table would be related to a LOCATION table via a one-many relationship. The LOCATION table would contain individual stream reaches or other descriptions of unique locations in which the project was conducted. The LOCATION table would be related via a one-many relationship with a SITE/WORK TYPE table. This table would contain information describing the site (i.e., dam, hatchery, stream, upland, etc.) and the type of work that was conducted at that site (fencing, screening, instream, etc.). The LOCATION table would also be related to the 100K reach file through the common StreamID allowing query and display of this data through the traditional StreamNet methods. This structure would allow for cataloging many locations with a given project, and would allow for cataloging of multiple activities at a given location. Locational data is critical so that the information could be integrated into existing StreamNet query systems and GIS applications. We believe that this structure, with some refinement, would adequately serve the needs of our user community and would be compatible with existing datasets.

This data base effort would result in a consistently formatted regional repository for mitigation project data that could prove invaluable for monitoring, evaluating, and planning of mitigation activities throughout the Pacific Northwest. By providing a consistent and well documented exchange format this effort would not only lead to the capture of historic data, but provide the infrastructure and tools to capture information on on-going and recently completed projects. Combined with universal access to this data through the world wide web, this data base will be a powerful tool for managers and policy makers involved in the development of on-the-ground project priorities and in the monitoring and evaluation of past projects.

We would start the construction of this database using data from BPA’s EMIS. We would add the data from the Oregon State database, working in concert with ODFW and the Oregon Coastal Salmon Restoration Initiative so as to maximize efficiency and insure mutual benefit.

We would also conduct data ‘mining expeditions’ for project data from all of the other potential sources listed above. To promote consistent data compilation, we would also publish a standard project information data exchange format that could be used by all of the various players in mitigation as a template for collecting and reporting information about their own activities. We would encourage those conducting restoration and protection projects to use the StreamNet system as the primary means to store and maintain these data. As one form of encouragement, we could potentially provide a world wide web ‘data capture’ application which would allow participants to enter data through the www directly into the StreamNet database. (A similar type of application has been developed in California as part of the California Watershed Projects Inventory (http://ice.ucdavis.edu/California_Watershed_Projects_Inventory/) which could serve as a model for StreamNet development.)

Given available resources, we would plan to establish a data exchange format and complete the BPA project portion of this activity by end of summer 1997. Oregon data would be captured in late FY 97 and early FY 98. Other data would be compiled in FY 98.

The project information database could potentially make a valuable contribution to the Fish and Wildlife Program’s monitoring and evaluation efforts. In this regard, it is recommended that StreamNet’s project database development activities be closely coordinated with those involved in the development of monitoring and evaluation strategies. At a minimum, these include BPA, NPPC, CBFWA, and the Independent Science Advisory Board.

While the completion of a truly comprehensive project information database will be a daunting task, we feel strongly that there is a compelling need for this type of information and that any effort we can apply to this task would be worthwhile and well received. We will solicit comments on this proposal from the major players in the region and then begin the task of assembling this database.