Monitoring Team Meeting

Meeting Minutes (Final)

Clark Fork River Delta Restoration Project Monitoring Coordination Meeting

Venue:  IDFG Panhandle Office, 2885 Kathleen Avenue, Coeur d’Alene, ID  83815; or conference call 208/770-3800 (code 3801).

When:   April 24, 2014 at 2:00 pm PST

Workshop Goal:  The purpose of the meeting is to coordinate monitoring strategies for the Clark Fork River Delta Restoration Project.

Participants:

Alex Fremier

Michael Lucid
Carrie Hugo
Betsy Hall
Kathy Cousins
Derek Antonelli
Kate Walker

Handouts:

1)      Clark Fork Delta Project Objectives document
2)      PowerPoint presentation

2:00 pm – Kathy Cousins reviewed scope of project, conceptual design and approach for the restoration project. The objectives include increasing species diversity and keeping soils in place.  Cousins noted that there was a plan to fly a LiDAR flight after the completion of the construction.

Alex Fremier gave an overview of the terrestrial scanning LiDAR (TLS) monitoring.  The goal of this work is to look at soil movement or lack of movement over time.  Fremier needs to put in receiving pins that will not be disturbed during the construction.  (See map on Slide 7 with pin locations TLS1-TLS5). The TLS equipment will need to be placed on a towers or potentially rocks.  Fremier will want to get these up before construction begins in fall 2014, to take measurements then and again after the restoration is complete.  He will be meeting with the project engineers to discuss.

Cousins went over a diagram showing the structure of the teams and the partners and how they all relate. There will be a meeting with all of the team leaders just before the project begins.

Cousins continued with the PowerPoint presentation and showed the spatial layout for all the different vegetation and Multi-species Baseline Initiative (MBI) monitoring approaches.  Fifteen (15) monitoring points were selected along a 100 meter grid using a stratified random sampling method.  These points will serve as the midpoint for the vegetation transects and sampling plots, as well as the vegetation and MBI monitoring photographic points.  Three of the points lie within undisturbed sites as control plots. It was noted that it is difficult to obtain a single control site for the herbaceous component of the project, as these reference sites are very dynamic.  Cousins noted that there are references sites identified for the scrub-shrub and forested wetland habitats, and these reference sites are found on the Gold Creek habitat segment of Pend Oreille Wildlife Management Area (WMA).  There is no reed canary grass found in the scrub-shrub and the deciduous wetland forest on this particular parcel.

Carrie Hugo said that Jay Carlisle and crew will do the bird monitoring protocol.  Carlisle will be contracted by the ACOE.  Hugo will coordinate with Carrie and together they will work with Citizen Scientists.  Hugo noted that Carlisle needs to start monitoring by June to make sure that birds are not dropping out of the surveys.  Betsy Hull is currently working on contract logistics.

Hugo was studying the Sacramento Delta protocol as a possible approach.  She was unsure about the equipment for the study.  Cousins noted that she may be able to purchase bat detectors and noted that the North American Bat initiative is to soon publish a technological bulletin and she suggested that the group consider using some of the protocols in this publication.  Michael Lucid said that he could train Hugo, Cousins and Hull on how to deploy the bat detectors.

Cousins said that water quality monitoring would follow the ACOE monitoring effort and could also include citizen scientists or elementary or high school students to measure temperature and flow.  Dennison Webb is the Team Leader for the Education Team and is currently looking into this possibility.  Cousins noted that Webb was developing a curriculum involving the project.  Hull provided that the ACOE plan did not currently have monitoring sites in or near the Clark Fork Delta, but there was one monitoring site up the river at the Clark Fork Bridge and others out in the lake, etc.  Hull asked if a monitoring site needed to be located on the Lake side of the Delta, and Cousins said yes and in all three channels and a borrow area.  Hull asked for a GIS map/points and she will look and determine feasibility.  Monitoring for water quality can be done starting June or July through October. Cousins will get together with Mike Stevenson (a hydrologist) at BLM and will give Hull the new sample points. Cousins said monitoring the water quality June through October should be fine.

Lucid said he would provide Cousins and staff the MBI training on May 14^th.  Early June would be a good time to start the MBI data collection and could be coordinated with the vegetation motioning. Derek stated that vegetation monitoring will occur in year zero (baseline), and then the first, third and fifth year.

Hugo will train people on bumble bee monitoring.  It is her new passion.  Cousins noted that the Idaho Conservation League will be leading the Project Outreach Team and may be interested in organizing a “Delta Bee Monitoring” event, as it sounded like fun.

There was some brainstorming about what monitoring could be immediately done.  Some concern regarding the timing for collecting bat information, as the North American bat technical paper is not out until this spring.  Hugo said she can put out some bat monitors.  Hugo talked about putting up mist nets as well in the later summer.   Hugo noted that the preconstruction window to collect data may be missed if nothing is done to monitor/collect data, so getting some data is better than nothing.  Hugo and Lucid agreed that three bat detector units would be sufficient to monitor Area 3.  Lucid will email Cousins with what equipment/unit is needed to be purchased.

Derek Antonelli asked if the amphibian monitoring was in a different area that monitoring say for the snails on the transect point.  Lucid replied that the amphibian monitoring would occur in different locations, and usually these locations are in ponds; the group looked at an aerial photograph of the project area and found some locations that would be acceptable.

The group agreed that the air temperature and relative humidity information was also needed. There was some brainstorming as to where to put the credit card size monitoring units, as they tend to become overheated in direct sunlight, providing erroneous information.

The group also agreed that it would be worthwhile to collect flying insects.  Lucid said that the insects could be stored at room temperature and that they would need to be somehow mounted. Lucid said that he knew of a climate control room where the insects could be stored until they are indentified.