Wind River Watershed Restoration : 2000-2001 Annual Report.

This report focuses on work conducted in 2000 and 2001 by the U.S. Geological Survey's Columbia River Research Laboratory (USGS-CRRL) as part of the Wind River Watershed Restoration Project. The project started in the early 1990s, and has been funded through the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) since 1998. The project is a comprehensive effort involving public and private entities seeking to restore water quality and fishery resources in the Wind River subbasin through cooperative actions. Project elements include coordination, watershed assessment, restoration, monitoring, and education. In addition to USGS-CRRL, other BPA-funded entities involved with implementing project components are the Underwood Conservation District (UCD), USDA Forest Service (USFS), and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). To describe the activities and accomplishments of the USGS-CRRL portion of the project, we partitioned the 2000-2001 annual report into two pieces: Report A and Report B. In Report A, we provide information on flow, temperature, and habitat conditions in the Wind River subbasin. Personnel from CRRL monitored flows at 12 sites in 2000 and 17 sites in 2001. Flow measurements were generally taken every two weeks during June through October, which allowed tracking of the descending limb of the hydrograph in late spring, through the base low flow period in summer, and the start of the ascending limb of the hydrograph in fall. We maintained a large array of water-temperature sites in the Wind River subbasin, including data from 25 thermographs in 2000 and 27 thermographs in 2001. We completed stream reach surveys on 14.0 km in 2000 and 6.1 km in 2001. Our focus for these reach surveys has been on the upper Trout Creek and upper Wind River watersheds, though some reach surveys have occurred in the Panther Creek watershed. Data generated by these reach surveys include stream width, stream gradient, large woody debris frequency, pool frequency, canopy shade, and riparian vegetation. Data on flow, temperature, and stream reaches have been collected by USGS-CRRL personnel since 1996. Where appropriate, we have compared the data collected in 2000-2001 to those data available from our earlier work