ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE
4.	Consider Expenditure of Budgeted Funds to Conduct A Test Installation of A Sonic Fish Counting Device in the Lower Carmel River to Enumerate the Whole Steelhead Run in the Future
Meeting Date:		February 12, 2010	Budgeted:	Yes, if Mid-Year Budget Adjustment is approved
From:		Darby W. Fuerst,	Program	Project Expenditures
		General Manager	Line Item No.:	2-3-1
Prepared By:		Kevan Urquhart	Cost Estimate:	$14,900
General Counsel Review: N/A
Committee Recommendation: The Administrative Committee considered this item on February 12, 2010 and recommended ___________________________.
CEQA Compliance: N/A

SUMMARY: The Board will consider authorizing the General Manager to enter into a contract with Peter Johnson, Senior Research Scientist of the firm LGL Northwest for an initial amount of $8,318, with the option of short-term extensions up to a not-to-exceed total of $14,900, to (a) reconnoiter the lower eight miles of the Carmel River mainstem to identify one or more optimal installation sites for a Dual Frequency Identification Sonar [DIDSON] device, (b) provide and temporarily install a DIDSON device at one site for up to ten consecutive days, if needed, and (c) provide a letter report assessing the effectiveness of this short-term installation of the device in enumerating immigrating adult steelhead, and if possible also larger emigrating juvenile steelhead in the Lower Carmel River. District staff selected Mr. Johnson for this work because of the consultant’s familiarity with, and demonstrated success in installing and operating DIDSON devices at multiple locations in California for other government agencies, including the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG). Mr. Smith is also the primary vendor recommended by the hardware manufacturer as being the most experienced individual utilizing their hardware on the West Coast, including the Columbia River. Based on this experience and expertise, District staff believes that Mr. Johnson will provide the most cost-effective and timely assistance in responding to these issues.

RECOMMENDATION: Staff recommends that the Board approve expenditure of the funds in the not-to-exceed amount of $14,900 to contract with Mr. Peter Johnson of the firm LGL Northwest to: (a) identify one or more optimal installation sites for a DIDSON camera device in the lower eight miles of the Carmel River mainstem, (b) provide and temporarily install a DIDSON device at one site for up to ten consecutive days, and (c) provide a letter report assessing the effectiveness of this short-term installation of the device in enumerating immigrating adult steelhead in the Lower Carmel River. The Administrative Committee considered this matter at its February 12, 2010 meeting and recommended ___________.

BACKGROUND:  The District designed, constructed, and operates and maintains the fish counting weir on the San Clemente Dam (SCD) fish ladder as an integral component of our overall environmental monitoring program. Though the Mitigation Program for the MPWMD Water Allocation Program does not specifically require this monitoring element, it is clear that data on the status of the steelhead run in the Carmel River are essential to documenting the ongoing impacts to, and recovery from CAW’s water diversions, which the District is responsible for overseeing. This record of fish counts has been maintained by District staff since 1988, and was collected prior to that by California American Water (CAW) since 1954. The District recently participated in signing a Collaboration Statement among key parties participating in the effort to remove SCD. If certain outstanding issues are resolved, it will take only three years to remove the dam, during the second year of which the District’s fish counting station will be removed. Thus it is possible that the District will no longer have a count of fish passing SCD in as little as three years from now.

In 1997, steelhead in south-central California were listed as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). In 2000, the National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) promulgated Section 4d rules for protecting steelhead. The District’s management of the water resources of the Carmel River and Seaside Groundwater Basin is significantly affected by restrictions intended to sustain and prevent the extinction of steelhead. Thus, it is of the utmost importance to be able to continue to document the trend in steelhead abundance. Installing a DIDSON device to count fish in concert with the few remaining years that the fish counter at SCD may be in operation, may enable us to index the two counts to each other, and thus provide a quantitative link to the trends in the historical data set.

One serious shortcoming with the existing fish counting device is that it is 18.6 miles upstream of the mouth of the river. It is roughly estimated that currently 40% or more of the total run does not pass San Clemente Dam. These 18.6 miles below SCD contain significant spawning habitat for adult steelhead in the main-stem of the river, as well as in five major tributaries. The quality and quantity of spawning habitat is likely increasing in the mainstem of the lower river each year, due to the ongoing habitat restoration efforts of the District and other non-profit community partners. There is evidence from redd surveys conducted annually by the District that the number and proportion of adults spawning in the lower river may be increasing in recent years. Thus, moving the fish counting site as far downstream as possible could demonstrate an as yet un-enumerated increase in the size of the total steelhead run, and would at least allow us to report an annual number that more accurately represents the total steelhead run size. Since the NMFS recovery goal under the ESA is based on the total run size of steelhead, without a counting location that enumerates the vast majority of adult immigrant steelhead, there will be ongoing uncertainty as to whether the recovery goal has been met.

In a prior Staff Report to the Board on June 16, 2008 (Technical Memorandum 2008-01), staff identified the problems with attempting to install a replacement mechanical fish counting device in the lower river, and identified that acoustic sonar technologies were likely the most feasible alternative to enumerate fish passage in the lower river. DIDSON is the latest generation of such technology (http://www.soundmetrics.com/). Other than boat-towed side-scan sonar, this is the only sonar technology that generates low-resolution images of the actual objects being observed by the acoustic beam. Older technologies provide only numeric output that must be mathematically interpreted by an algorithm to make a probability-based decision as to whether the object observed is actually a fish vs. debris or some other fluid-density anomaly.

Changes last year to the rules for the CDFG’s, Fisheries Restoration Grants Program (FRGP) now allow applications to support the costs for long-term monitoring of key anadromous fisheries populations. Since the Carmel River run of steelhead is the only long-term database of steelhead abundance available south of the Russian River, and also the only one within the South Central Coast Distinct Population Segment listed under the Federal ESA, the FRGP is likely to place a significant priority on supporting the District to continue the monitoring of this population. If this pilot project is successful, it will be used to justify a grant application in excess of $80,000 for the purchase of a DIDSON to install in the lower Carmel River by 2012. The cost of installing and maintaining the device, as well as reporting its data on the District’s web pages and Annual Mitigation and Monitoring Report could be cited as matching funds for the grant application. Last year, the FRGP funded the Humboldt State University to install one DIDSON on Redwood Creek in Northern California.

The consultant believes it is likely that he can prove the efficacy of the DIDSON on the Carmel River is as little as four field days. However, in case there is a slump in the daily number of steelhead immigrating into the river in the first two weeks of March, we are including funds to keep the consultant in the field up to ten days. The last two weeks of February and the first two weeks of March usually comprise the peak of the annual run. The Senior Fisheries Biologist will consult with the General Manager after four field days, on the daily results of the test program to date, to decide whether or not the consultant’s contract should be extended past the initial four days. In no case will any extension of the base contract exceed the total budgeted amounts.

IMPACT ON FISCAL AND STAFF RESOURCES: A similar amount of funds to the contract proposed in Exhibit 4-A were initially requested by staff for inclusion in the original Fiscal Year 2009-2010 budget, but eliminated during the budget development process due to the District’s concerns about the risk of the potential loss of property tax revenues. The funds to cover this expense are being reallocated from Line Item No. 2-3-2 B., Water Resource Assistants and Line Item No. 2-3-2 C., Seasonal Fish Rescue Workers. This is made possible by the early closure of the Sleepy Hollow Steelhead Rearing Facility in November 2009, which reduced the need for temporary staff. This reallocation still leaves a full month of staff time for June for two future Fish Rescue Workers, and two existing Water Resources Assistants, as well as some part time hours for one of the Water Resource Assistants through May of this Fiscal Year. It is anticipated that the work under this contract will be completed in March 2010.

EXHIBITS

4-A Cost Estimate provided by Mr. Johnson

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