Idaho Habitat/Natural Production Monitoring, Pt. I: General Monitoring Subproject : Annual Progress Report 1990.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) has been monitoring and evaluating proposed and existing habitat improvement projects for rainbow-steelhead trout Oncorhynchus mykiss, hereafter called steelhead, and chinook salmon O. tshawytscha, hereafter called chinook, in the Clearwater and Salmon River drainages for the past seven years. Projects included in the evaluation are funded by, or proposed for funding by, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) under the Northwest Power Planning Act as off-site mitigation for downstream hydropower development on the Snake and Columbia rivers. This evaluation project is also funded under the same authority (Fish and Wildlife Program, Northwest Power Planning Council). A mitigation record is being developed using increased carrying capacity and/or survival as the best measure of benefit from a habitat enhancement project. Determination of full benefit from a project depends on completion or maturation of the project and presence of adequate numbers of fish to document actual increases in fish production. The depressed status of upriver anadromous stocks has precluded measuring full benefits of any habitat project in Idaho. Partial benefit is credited to the mitigation record in the interim period of run restoration