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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBradley-Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting April 21, 2011BRADLEY LAKE HYDROELECTRIC PROJECT BATTLE CREEK FISHERIES FLOW MEETING (via electronic media at the Alaska Energy Authority’s Board Room) Anchorage, Alaska April 21, 2011 — 1:00 p.m. The meeting was called to order at 1:05 p.m. by Alaska Energy Authority Project Manager, Bryan Carey. Present were: Harvey Ambrose, Homer Electric Association Jason Mouw, ADF&G Monte Miller, ADF&G, Statewide Hydro Coordinator Krissy Plett, ADNR Sue Walker, NOAA Fisheries Eric Rothwell, NOAA Fisheries Joe Griffith, MEA (teleconference) Lee Koss, BLM (teleconference) Linda Kahn, USFWS (teleconference) Jeff Anderson, USFWS Soldotna Office (teleconference) John Magee, R&M (teleconference) James Brady, HDR Heidi Weigner, HDR Jim Thrall, AEA Consultant Bryan Carey, AEA Project Manager May Clark, AEA Administrative Assistant Mr. Carey: We are trying to accelerate the timeline with Battle Creek to move forward on engineering and environmental studies and perhaps amend the Bradley license. James Brady of HDR will review the 2010 Battle Creek aquatic studies and review the hydrology report that will show stream flow contributions, then we will enter into broader discussion regarding future studies and ballpark diversions — what would or would not be acceptable (feedback from the agencies on diversion amounts). Mr. Brady: Everyone should have received the reports: “Investigation of Aquatic Resources in Battle Creek 2010” and its companion report, “Hydrology Analysis”. We began this project July 2010 with monthly field visits into late October 2010. Our objectives were that we wanted to perform aquatic mapping of the aquatic habitats of Battle Creek. It was a reconnaissance to learn how the system was set up and how to operate there. We wanted to find out what the timing and relative abundance was for the salmon species using the watershed and we also wanted to look at other species that might be there. We did stream channel geometry to set up cross-sections so that Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 1 we could start to understand how different pool levels may affect the different habitat types. We performed a hydrology analysis recently to try to investigate what the pre and post project effects would be for Battle Creek. The PowerPoint slides were shown and discussed, including: Overview of Battle Creek watershed. Battle Creek is about 9 miles long that feeds off a glacier at the head of Kachemak Bay. South Fork Battle Creek is a major tributary. Skirmish Creek is a small tributary with a beaver pond. The concept of study ‘reaches’ were developed from studying the maps. The PowerPoint presentation is organized by the study ‘reaches.’ Three gauging sites were gauged in 1991-1993 on Battle Creek: glacier site is the highest, the south fork and the third is in reach 3. Two sites have been reestablished. The hydrology from 1991-1993 shows summer flow cresting between 400-500 cfs and winter flow about 10 cfs. Reach 1 is marshy grass, tidal influenced with alders and is about one-half mile long. We were unable to complete the habitat classifications in the lowest portions due to equipment failures. An arbitrary river mile zero was established at tidewater. Sample sites were established in side channels at high water they were covered. Captures were largely Dolly Varden and juvenile Coho consistent with other studies. Four cross- sectional transects were established through the lower 3 reaches of the river. Reach 2 is forested with woody debris and islands. Very productive habitat mostly Dolly Varden, few Coho juveniles. The water clarity is glacial and visually not good, but clears up in late September with no evidence of adult salmon. Schools of Coho mostly associated with scour pools. Two cross-sectional transects were placed through this reach into a backwater channel. Upstream from the bridge is a beaver dam next to Bradley Road on Skirmish Creek. Reach 3 is the beginning of rising canyon terrain and exposed bedrock with angular fracture lines and extends from the beaver dam area to South Fork. It consists of a single channel at 300-400 cfs, forcing access by helicopter. An old stream channel in back used to access the lower portion has active Dolly Varden spawning. South Fork comes in at the head of reach 3. The main stem of Battle Creek takes a greater than 90 degree bend then bends 90 degrees once again before it goes into the lower canyon. None of the South Fork is mapped as anadromous. There’s an old gauge site located on the South Fork which is warmer and contains algae. Reach 4 has exposed boulders and bedrock. A pool at the confluence of the South Fork contained adult Coho and is the highest location that we documented fish. During low water we were able to hike up the main stem of the South Fork which was very narrow. The lower canyon contains many cascades, big boulders, and exposed bedrock, not many pools and steep gradient with a dramatic waterfall. We recommend ADF&G consider correcting the upstream anadromous reach to this point. 2 er ESS Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 2 Reach 5 out of the steep gradient lower canyon to the upper canyon that the waterfall in reach 4 was just below reach 4-reach 5 break. The break was established as we were confident it would be a barrier to migration. There’s another helicopter access point in reach 5 as in reach 4 explaining why the gauges were placed there. We set minnow traps at those sites and didn’t capture anything. This is the approximate area of the proposed diversion. Key Findings: e The important fishery habitat is located below the South Fork confluence. e Dolly Varden is found throughout reaches 1, 2 and 3 and South Fork. e Reach 3 is an important spawning area for both Coho and Dolly Varden. e We were unable to get information on sockeye salmon spawning. ADF&G pointed out that it's been documented that sockeye have spawned in the beaver pond area of Skirmish Creek and it’s an important rearing area for salmon. Mr. Brady: We couldn't see any evidence that salmon would be spawning, as it’s a muddy and boggy creek. We did have juvenile sockeye in our captures from the beaver pond. It's a challenging place to identify fish. Reach 1 has the intertidal influence that seems to be the key rearing habitat for Coho. We didn’t collect temperature data, but evidence of algae on the bottom of South Fork points to a significant temperature difference in the summer between the South Fork and main stem of Battle Creek. We decided that given what we've learned so far, it would be good to get an idea of how the hydrology might be changed if the Battle Creek project proceeded, so we did a hydrology analysis whose objective was to estimate pre and post project flows at two key locations in the drainage — assuming 5 cfs remained in Battle Creek at the diversion. Also assuming the South Fork runoff was a good proxy for estimating the runoff from some of the sub-drainage basins not influenced by glaciers. More information can be found in the report. 1991-1993 flow records were used. Mr. Miller: I’m concerned about how much water is coming in above the South Fork that would affect the temperature if you’re removing a majority of that water than the South Fork temperature difference with what's left in the river could have an effect on the fish that are holding there. Mr. Brady: It would be easy to generate this plot with a third line showing just the South Fork contributions, then you could see the difference. That would be the accretion coming upstream. | can’t off the top tell you just what that is. Referring to the two cross- sections, this is how the flows would change, we picked three representative months, July - summer peak (post project, reach 1 shows a .7 decrease in mean monthly flow); March - winter low (unchanged); October - intermediate fall (.1 or .2 decrease). Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 3 Mr. Miller: | am concerned about your cross-section modeling. You're using a Forest Service-based cross-section model to develop cut banks and habitat, etc., which is based on high water. Normal circumstances, 80% of the year were not in high water, and you're way over-estimating the amount of habitat availability in there. When you do that, you reduce the habitat in those upper levels taken out, it reduces the habitat in the lower levels that makes this kind of a drop even more critical in habitat loss. If you're looking at a picture that’s this big, when in reality you’re water level 80% of the time is only this big, you’re adding habitat in there that they don’t have access to 80% of the year under the Forest Service model. | don’t like that model for that reason. Mr. Brady: You're talking about the habitat at high flows... Mr. Miller: Your cross-section goes up to 20 and your habitat of cut banks and all that is figured on full basin high water cross-section. Mr. Brady: This isn’t bank full. (Bank full is down here). This is just the survey data plotted. Mr. Miller: Your habitat model, where you're determining how much cut bank, how much of this and that is based on bank full. It is not at bank full condition but maybe 15-20% of the time, so it over-estimates the habitat availability for fish in there. Then when you reduce the water level by as much as 30% depth than what’s normal in that period, that’s a huge change for fish than what is normally available. Mr. Brady: We haven't made any attempt to really do that kind of analysis yet. All we’ve done is to establish the cross-sections. Mr. Miller: I’ve seen your numbers for cut banks, etc. | think those numbers were inflated because they use full bank criteria on the Forest Service model and | don’t think it’s appropriate. Mr. Brady: That’s a good point. The habitat mapping was done in late September and we were quite a ways below bank full at that time. The habitat classifications that are color-coded on the maps represent an intermediate stage. Mr. Miller: I’m confused because your reporting states that you’re using the Forest Service full bank criteria and includes all the area, whether there’s water there or not. Mr. Mouw: It just shows you where the boundaries are. It shows you what might be. It's not necessarily an inaccurate portrayal of the habitat, but it allows you to look at how different flow volumes interact within that boundary. Mr. Brady: We haven't done an instrument flow study yet; we had a limited scope like a reconnaissance field season last year. We tried to gather as much information as we could with five site visits. rrr rv XSXSaSSaS S rE eee Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 4 Ms. Plett: We always use and recommend the Forest Service model because it is so robust. | don’t know of any other models that would be appropriate. Mr. Carey: The hydrology report shows the March pre and post project flows as being the same. It’s actually November thorough May that this diversion would have no effect on the Battle Creek flows, because of the contribution from the glacier up at that point is one or two cfs. Mr. Miller: Has any mapping been attempted to look at the braiding in the areas that you would lose what that one-foot drop in July in the stream? As to what side channels you may lose, would those areas be dried up more and there would be less resting habitat for small fish as opposed to the stream itself. Mr. Brady: No, we haven't made an effort to do that and we don’t have good enough contour elevation data to do that. We'd need LIDAR or something to model that, especially the reach 1 intertidal area. Mr. Miller: How much sediment movement/change is there from season to season. That would definitely affect your ability to evaluate it. Mr. Brady: | need to see how dynamic that channel is too. If the bridge wasn't there, I’m sure you'd see a lot more movement. Mr. Thrall? : We need to be aware that reach 1 is interconnected with the Marten River delta. They took boral from the Marten River for the project to build a dike. After the project ended, there were two excavation areas they converted into fish rearing ponds. It was outside the license agreements, but they are still there. Over the years, Marten River has continued to braid. If you walked to the end of the dike it’s graded to the top at the lower end. The hydraulic gradient is such that the water goes through the dike, into the two Coho rearing ponds. I’ve been there several times over the years where the water flows out the other side of the ponds into Battle Creek drainage. You can actually see water flowing from the Marten River via the ponds into the reach section, so there’s a strange interconnection there. The two excavations were converted into fish rearing habitat. When they were sampled, Coho and Dolly’s were found in there. Mr. Miller: | guess the point is that whole Marten River and Battle Creek delta seasonally is all interconnected surface water in very complex ways. | don’t know if the Marten River has Coho spawning. It’s a complex system and subject to major changes in the immediate future. Those areas will continue to be interconnected. Mr. Mouw: I'd like to comment on the placement of those transects and follow up on Monte’s question. Originally when we looked at Battle Creek's glacial system, we had no idea to what extent the fisheries were. We didn’t know what resources to recommend. Now we're surprised about the Coho ecosystem. One of the Sere RE ae LA Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 5 recommendations was the placement of these transects to get an idea of how different levels of flow interact with channel habitat. That was one of the reasons | recommended placing transects in the alcoves off-channel and side-channel areas. Habitat from other systems we know are important for juvenile fish. We are hoping with those transects and the gauging to be able to see at what stage they become connected with the main river, how often are they available to rearing or spawning fish. That was the intent and still the hope we have for those transects to begin to evaluate the proposed flows in the lower reaches. There looks like a lot of ean above five cfs in the upper basin, a lot of input from the South Fork. This is helpful. We are hoping we can take the cross section data from these transects and do a perimeter analysis to see at what flows these habitat features are becoming wetted. To what extent were you observing fish spawning and rearing in the locations. Merging fish utilization survey data with these cross section data to be able to assess that. Mr. Carey: We'd like to get some of your ideas generally about when we are looking at some type of diversion flow if that is within the ballpark of being reasonable. If you are to come back and look at the hydrology or otherwise without knowing the exact number you will be wanting, let's say 50% of the flow to go down, then at that point we know that a diversion, that the cost of it and everything else won’t be economical to go forward on it. We'd want feedback on what you see on the information, one is what additional studies, but also to get an idea of what you foresee as possible fish flows or otherwise. Mr. Miller: There was a few in the hydrology report — at cross-section one near tide water, cross-section 3 near the South Fork confluence; it would be nice to see all of those, range of flows, etc. all of the transects so we’re seeing post project scenarios, which habitat features we are going to be lost and which are utilized by fish. Give us a handle on it as far as assessing the proposal. Flow may be a month by month determination and not a standard year-round...some places start with 9 and go to 10, 15, 25, depending on the need of resources and flow during certain periods of time. Mr. Carey: Our preference would be in doing a static-type release. Nuka is already a conduit and the elevation of the diversion could easily be 2,000 feet. There will be no power up there. For anybody to get up there and change a gate valve or otherwise biennial, by helicopter in the fall when its stormy, etc. there will be a big problem getting up there at times in the fall. Mr. Miller: Do you anticipate somebody going up in the spring to open the diversion and in the fall go up and close it? Mr. Carey: If we could have a conduit, it would be left open year-round. All flows during winter... if you had a conduit pipe at 5 cfs, at all times the 5 cfs would be going through. During winter months when it drops below 5 cfs all the water would continue to flow down there and during May once the flow goes above 5 cfs, it would get to the 5 cfs and keep flowing, that would require no maintenance, except in summer to check it to see that is still open. 2 Sn Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 6 Mr. Miller: At that elevation this will be frozen into a solid block of ice. Mr. Carey: You're looking at least 7 months at only 2 cfs, realistically. We don’t need to worry about a valve during winter to have different flows, because there really is no flow. Mr. Miller: I'd be concerned with this flow pipe freezing and glaciating back and whatever water going into the diversion and the creek gets nothing. Mr. Carey: If it freezes, if anywhere loses water it will be Bradley Lake due to a steep canyon. If the area behind the diversion freezes, any new melting water will 5 over the top of what the diversion dam would be and just be part of the normal of the.. Ms. Plett?: There’s two issues Water is going to require. 1) We are going to require you to meter measure the water flow into Bradley Lake. 2) Especially during the high flood years, we’re going to be able to, when we write our permit, you will have to give us a specific amount of water so we can say you have to release five cfs in the channel, but the May high flow is 10 and that’s you ask for, anything over 10 you can’t have. That would still have to go down the channel. You will have to calculate in for your 100 year flood - say this one year was extremely high flow and we actually got 20. Mr. Rothwell: If you have that minimum flow built in, say you have to have it measured, you put a weir in, at the elevation of which only excess of five cfs would be able to go over the weir, then you're also constrained by the design capacity of the intake. The intake flow will only be able to take so much, so you're going to be able to have some kind of return from that point as well. Whatever that design is, it will be the peak flow once a month — unless it’s going to be a static diversion like you’d want low maintenance. Mr. Carey: We'd definitely want low maintenance. | know Eric has seen the Nuka Diversion — there’s an open invitation to other people in the resource agencies to go to Bradley Lake, we can see Battle Creek and Nuka. At Nuka the conduits are lower down the diversion to try and assure that the flow goes across through the diversion under (the five cfs in that case), however, the diversion is only so high and so during time periods where ice is up or the river channel changes, a lot of the flow goes over the top of the diversion. Let's just say it’s 1500 feet because that was up what they looked at 20 years ago, it’s deep enough so there’s not much of a pool, so if you could get the 100-year flood or anything else that will occur, you might have 200 cfs going towards Bradley Lake, but you might have 200 cfs going over the top of the diversion dam down into Battle Creek as a normal thing. To try and keep it within size constraints, there’s no way we can hold back the diversion dam large inflows, it’s going to go over the top of the dam and it will go down to Battle Creek itself and not Bradley Lake under the large flows. Under the low flows, with five cfs, it will continue during the winter months at the same rate as it would have been in normal situations. ree Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 7 Mr. Miller: Run of river, or 5, whichever is lower. From December to April, you won't have very good odds to get up there to change or do anything. There’s an existing Battle Creek diversion for this project already that was part of the original license and it diverts very minimal amount of water into Bradley. USGS has a gauge there at 5 or 10 peak even in summer, they go up twice a year to service it. Mr. Carey: The Bradley road is usually open at the end of May. Bradley is at about elevation 1100’. The diversion locations would be at 1500’ or 2,000’, with the amount of snow up there, you won't be able to dig down anywhere until late June or so. Mr. Rothwell: What if the flows we need downstream aren’t necessarily huge but a barrier to this project going forward, but they are complex, and at the peak we need downstream that interferes with this diversion meaning that if you want to have a simple diversion you wouldn't be able to statically adjust. If you just had an elevation at which point it would pour into Bradley Lake and everything excess would be run of river... Mr. Miller? We would have to set the worst case scenario for the period of time instead of being able to adjust. Mr. Carey: We would have to look at what we could engineer around. There are possibilities that we could do other things, depending on what the flows are at some point. The more we do is going to increase the costs from our standpoint and the greater the flows...if you’re wanting 50 cfs during the summer, we'd have to look at the economics and stuff like that. We can have more discussions on the different flows and have a better idea sooner than later. Mr. Miller: In this past year, you went up there in July and August and were still blown out by high flows. Is it normal for that system to run that late with high flows where in September where you have to be concerned about a reduction in water during those period of high flows, there’s going to be more water available than you can use essentially; if the water runs from the table top to this high, and you have to leave this much, and you can only take this much, that much is still going over. It may be a moot point on what's left because there’s going to be more water than you're able to utilize anyway. Ms. Plett: Is there a limitation as to what you can divert. Mr. Carey: It depends on the high flows you will be getting -- in June and July you will get the snow melt. There are still substantial areas above the diversion that will give you the high flows. At the diversion site, at 1500’ — 2,000’ there’s snowmelt and glacier melt which tends to occur later in the season is what's going to be important. A lot of the flows measure 780 during summer. It could be 200 or 300 cfs, depending on the height of the diversion dam or otherwise, you can still only handle so much water. When you get the big flows, a large rainstorm or whatever causes melting down, we eee reer Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 8 may be able to get all the flows to maybe 200 cfs, any extra will go right over the top of the dam and make its way on down the existing channel down to Battle Creek. Then this gets into if we’re getting the flows between five and 200 cfs, depending on how the diversion dam is built and how large it will be and how it will handle large flows. Mr. Miller: That goes back to asking the question, what is the maximum cfs diversion are you looking for? Mr. Carey: |’d have to look at the engineering reports of the trips if we were to do a ditch across there, how much it would be able to handle, but generally we’d want the diversion to handle 200 to 300 cfs., because we’re not going to get water out of the glacier area for 10 months out of the year. There’s really no water going to come down. If we miss winter's big events, even though it may not occur every year to have a 300 cfs flow or something like that. That's a lot of water. One acre foot of water at Bradley is equal to about 1 MWh of electricity — so from that standpoint we would be remiss in trying to cut ourselves short in catching the upside potential of flows. Mr. Miller: |’d hate to be revisiting this in five years after construction when you'd say well we want to enlarge our ditch and get another 200. This should be a one-time shot to make this determination. Let's not revisit it. Mr. Carey: Once we put the ditch in, we’re not going to be trying to revisit it any time soon, because it’s going to cost enough money to put it in. It would have to be a very significant difference to come in and modify it. Mr. Miller: It’s going to be an open ditch, not a pipe? Mr. Carey: The feasibility reflects the open ditch would be the most cost-effective. Mr. Thrall: Regarding the two years of gauging they did back in the 1990s, of the 27 months of gauging there were seven months where flows exceeded 300 cfs, at the 700’ level. Not on a monthly basis, so there are times where at least 25% of the time there will be one or more flows over 300 in any given month. Mr. Carey: We're looking at doing the diversion twice as high as that. Mr. Thrall: The winter minimums range down from November to March from 4 to 2 cfs, but within those same months you will see variations from four to 50 cfs. It’s hard to judge. Again, this is based on two years of data. Mr. Carey: USGS has the gauges in there now. They have been recording the stage data but they don’t want to convert that yet to cfs. They are not publishing the cfs data yet. Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 9 Mr. Brady: We have recommendations already covered. We are hoping to get ideas on what information we need to move forward on some decisions. Ms. Walker: My main concern is for the intertidal habitat just above tidal inflow. Seems to be most important rearing habitat which is probably the creative fisheries function for the stream. | would be concerned that you would be seeing that you have more flows to sustain habitat accrediation down in the intertidal habitat and possibly channel relocation. What | don’t have a handle on is how much uplift occurs in the area. The risk is if you lowered flows significantly you could impact that very important lower habitat, especially for Coho. Is there any evidence of Coho in the area switching back and forth in the spawning channels and then rearing in the summer in the estuary and going into other habitat for over-wintering? That seems to be a common life history. Mr. Brady: We would expect that life history, but didn’t collect any data to demonstrate that. Ms. Walker: | don’t really see any significant potential impacts for this project. Mr. Brady: The intertidal areas are interesting in that | think a lot of what is going on with the channel now is controlled by the bridge. That may be limiting the amount of material through there. You can see that the current channel that Battle Creek is occupying probably hasn’t been in that channel very long and you can see the old channel alluvial has moved back and forth for some time. That's a very dynamic area. The tidal influence changes it a lot. Mr. Miller: You kind of had a conflict in some of your initial slides with regard to areas of importance. You said reach 1 is probably the most significant, then you said reach 3 probably has the best and the most this and that, which is it, one or three. Mr. Brady: Reach 1 is important for Coho juvenile rearing. Our capture results were predominantly located there, and also the Skirmish Creek beaver pond. For life history phases for Coho salmon, reach 1 is pretty critical. We didn’t see any evidence of spawning activity in reach 1 of any species. It looks like there should be spawning in reach 2 but we never observed any. Reach 3 appears to be where the spawning habitat is. Mr. Miller: My concern is where the loss of water is in the great fish spawning areas with lower velocities. You may have the same number of fish, but if the quality of the spawning habitat changes because they're forced into a different channel, you can cause losses. Ms. Plett: Can you quantify how much of the spawning habitat in reach 3 would be lost for Coho. Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 10 Mr. Brady: Under this scenario | don’t think any spawning habitat would be lost, because we're really trimming off the water that’s coming in July in peak time. Coho are there in September. There won't be any Coho habitat loss. The big unknown is what's going on with sockeye salmon. | don’t think there are many there, but there’s evidence of some. The sockeye timing should be in August, at least that’s the way it is in Bradley River (corrected to Battle Creek). Mr. Walker: The Coho spawning in reach 3 in Bradley (corrected to Battle Creek) in the context with Coho spawning...what is the number of fish there. Mr. Carey: We heard from the operators there that occasionally they've seen sockeye at the beaver pond, but normally when they see them it’s 5 or 10 fish at the most. In reach 3 with regards to October cross-section in reach 3 not much difference in spawning area. Under those flows it would make a water level difference of .2 of a foot. Mr. Rothwell: To clarify, the reason reach 1 is so valuable, because this river is not supporting significant spawning, just basically supporting rearing of juveniles that migrated from adjacent systems. Ms. Walker: You have to put that rearing habitat in context with all other available rearing habitat in the area. The reductions you propose aren't very significant. We'll go back and review this. Mr. Carey: There may be opportunities at the Marten River ponds to improve them habitat-wise. Ms. Plett: is there anything we can do about the bridge. Mr. Brady: It’s not much of a bridge — it’s old wood and steel beams. The reason that the project boundary goes out that way is because that’s where the borrow pit areas in Marten River. If you look at the license boundary, it goes out and incorporates that area and there was a road and there’s also an old landing strip there. | got involved in two amendments to the license, one was to put the road back in because the operators felt they needed access to the second landing strip when they couldn't land at the first one (safety issue); and after several years when no one ever used it and it got to be a maintenance headache, so a second amendment was done to take it out again. Now it’s basically being ignored. There’s no maintenance going on it. Mr. Carey: The bridge is deteriorating wood. We have to decide if we’re going to spend more money replacing (parts of) it or not. That could come up for discussion under things we can do habitat-wise. Mr. Miller: There was some discussion that maybe we need to keep the bridge as someday we may have to go into the area and get more boral material. Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 11 Mr. Anderson: How do you think cutting down the flow through reach 4 is going to affect sediment transport and spawning habitat in reach 3, the prime spawning area. Mr. Brady: I’m not sure how much sediment is coming down and being flushed out. | would like to take our staff geomorphologist up there to make an assessment. Mr. Anderson: Another comment to follow up on temperature issues as mentioned earlier. If the flows are cut from main stem Battle Creek and you’re getting more of an influence from the warmer South Fork itself, it could influence spawning timing of some of the fish if they're getting out of warmer water temperature que earlier than they normally would; that could affect spawning time which could affect incubation time, etc. throughout the cycle once the eggs are in the gravel. Temperature monitoring might be appropriate as well. Mr. Brady: That's a good recommendation and one we make in our report as well. In another aspect of our studies, we collected baseline macroinvertebrate at the four stations and that would be interesting to model if there is a (summer time) temperature influence from the South Fork increased due to reduced flow that may have an impact on the macroinvertebrate community — that could be reflected there in some way. When we collected temperature data in the fall there didn’t seem to be a big difference between the Battle Creek temperature and the South Fork temperature. Mr. Anderson: Regarding the flow data we are looking at from 1991-1993, is there any reason to think that the flow regime now is any different than it was back in the early 1990’s now that the glacier has retreated since then and is no longer much of an influence now as it was back then. What are the thoughts 50 years down the line when the glacial influence might be a little bit less. Mr. Carey: The glacier has definitely retreated since the 1990s. There’s no doubt about that by looking at the USGS maps and where the glacier is now. How much the flow has helped the glacier right now compared to the 90’s...most of the diversion flow would be from the glacier, what the flow is right now compared to the 90’s, we’re still a little bit uncertain on that. We can try and look back on the 1990s at Nuka Glacier to see how much Nuka’s changed over the last 20 years because Nuka’s been gauged during that time period and is located fairly close by, so you’d hopefully be able to get an idea. We're not completely certain on that, we need to look at that more. In regards to 50 years, I’m sure it’s going to get to where the flow off the glacier has decreased, whether it's 50 years or 75 years, I’m not sure about, but my general thought is if it can make a difference in our energy and gas in the next 10-20 years, then without worrying about whether the glacier will be there in 50 years. 50 years will still be contribution by snow melt and the precipitation up there may not be quite as much. Mr. Miller: If you set environmental flows at a certain level and you think 20 years, even if it drops off, we’re still going to get our environmental flows, but what we could be lacking is in the early years we may get overflow and flushing. Those flushing flows may pa ec pe eg SSE Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 12 become reduced over the years and we won't have them often or as high if you have less water coming out of your system. Mr. Carey: The flows could occur more likely in the fall and when we get the big rainstorms. You will still get the flows regardless of the diversion. This will still be a large enough drainage area so you can get the flushing flows through there. Mr. Brady: Monte and Jason, what information do you need to look at in order to figure out what those environmental flows need to be. Mr. Mouw: It seems like you may have a lot of that data already. In looking at the fish data on page 21 of the aquatic resources report, you have numbers of fish captured by reach, one of the things that would be nice if is you show what kind of habitats you were capturing those fish in and where they were in relation to the transects. You have fish utilization by habitat and the ability to look incrementally at how the habitat becomes available or unavailable as a function of flow, would be helpful. It looks like over the seasons through July, August and September that most of the rearing is occurring prior to ...it looks like by September everything is almost gone and out of the system, it doesn’t look like there’s much over-wintering. Mr. Brady: Kachemak Bay Research Reserve has a grad student doing a project on intertidal coastal marine habitats, so there is some work going on in Kachemak Bay as a bigger geographic area, so that may shed light on it. Mr. Thrall: Taking another look at those ponds would be simple to do, as well as another look at the beaver pond. Mr. Miller: You have two years of gauging, plus 10 months of gauging under a new system, typically we'd like five years of gauging information, but we'd sure like to see the USGS stuff for this year and maybe even by this time next year have a better idea of where it’s at. What gauging there is, do you agree with that Jason. (Jason agrees). And secondarily to that, you’ve shown temperature differences in South Fork. I'd like to see a little bit of work, a simple temperature monitor in the main stem as well as in the South Fork to do some comparison and be able to do a predictive thing on, i.e, if you take X percentage out of the river and you have so much left, can you estimate what the temperature change might be in the....It would be interesting to see the water flow temperature impact of South Fork currently with what it could be after diversion. There is a concern with reduced flows. Mr. Carey: I'd also heard from (Jim Bannison?) about sediment wise. Ms. Walker: Do you have any plans of taking out the gauges any time soon? Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 13 Mr. Carey: No. | told USGS we were keeping them in. What about additional fish surveys, timing wise, numbers per year, is there a time period where you'd want additional ones that we don’t have. Mr. Miller: I’m uncertain as to whether the number of fish found dictate a whole lot more effort with regards to that. It would be nice to have a second year of data to validate the first as opposed to cyclic runs and it would be nice to pin down the sockeye runs if we could. That's my position. | don’t care about Mi RABE, | probably should, but let’s let the Bay take care of them. Mr. Mouw: We can also just think about that for a time. I'd like to run it by some of our Homer staff. Mr. Miller: Yes, they're more in tune with the importance of this resource to their area of management and | think we need to get that input from them. Mr. Mouw: We've asked them too about the Fox River studies, the importance of this intertidal was one of my first questions then we start focusing on reaches two and three as seeming to be more important. I'd like to see if they have any additional data since they've had staff changes, retirements. I'd like to run it by them also see if the other agencies have anything. Ms. Walker: I'd like to run this by our staff too. Mr. Carey: We'd like to receive a joint letter or separate letters as to your thoughts. We will have our FERC Part 12 inspection the second week of July and normally when that goes on there’s an open invitation to different agencies to see the project. For Battle Creek, that’s relatively easy for us to do an agency trip. Mr. Miller: It won't be open to see anything before the end of June anyway. Mr. Carey: The lower portion will be. July will be when you want to see up high where the snow is. Mr. Miller: That will be done in conjunction with your Bradley timing? Mr. Carey: It could be done as part of that. We may have Erich Gaedeke (FERC Fish Biologist) from Portland up here. He tries to come up every couple of years. Mr. Thrall: Do you want to talk about the amendment process and get feedback from folks here today or thoughts. Mr. Miller: Do you have a timetable? 2 nn nn Sa Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 14 Mr. Carey: Do | have a timetable? Jim and | were going to get together and talk more about a timetable and what needs to occur with regards to us moving forward. It would be a non-capacity amendment with Bradley. In the proposed capital budget right now there’s funding in there for Battle Creek which would be direct from the state. At the same time, the other part of it, we’d have to, from an engineering standpoint, do a few things and the utilities would also have to bond money to come up with their half, or thereabouts. In general, we’d want to move ahead through the license amendment so that we could get the construction and be able to do the flows within the next five years. Cook Inlet — they’re looking right now at the average gas amount production in the Inlet will be less than demand within five years or so. From that standpoint, the hydropower being able to take some of that difference off... Mr. Miller: You'd like to say by 2014 being well into the process to where you know that you're going to either build or not build. To be able to schedule your construction start hopefully by 2014. Mr. Carey: Yes. Mr. Thrall: As a non-capacity amendment, my past experience has been if we can get consensus among the agencies, FERC can process a non-capacity amendment pretty quickly and you don't get into all the same maze of boxes; it can be much simplified and compressed as compared to any sort of capacity amendment project. That’s what | will try to assume we may be able to accomplish when | put together a schedule for Bryan and if you guys see a problem with that, let me know now. Obviously, who knows — somebody may pop up at any time, that’s always possible, but ... Mr. Miller: From our standpoint, | don’t see any reason why the issues can’t be resolved, the parameters set and the process move forward for construction by 2014. | don’t think that would be very much out of line. Maybe sooner, but it just depends on FERC. | can’t speak for the other agencies, but this doesn’t have monumental problems that | see. We may disagree a little bit on flows, but | think we'll get around to some common numbers that everybody can live with. We'd like to see a little more information and reserve the right to modify thoughts and opinions. | don’t see this being a big bull elephant out there that we’d have to shoot. It’s going to provide some relief to Bradley, some assistance to Bradley and it shouldn't impact the system overly. Ms. Walker: When do you think you will apply for an amendment. Mr. Carey: About a year from now. Mr. Miller: Maybe towards summer to early or fall of 2012. Based on the fact that we’d like to see more information, there’s going to be some data to get. We're waiting on USGS to convert and do things and make available more information. Having two more years of hydrologic data would strengthen the position greatly. Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 15 Mr. Carey: We see this being as an EA sort of thing. And there’s the changes that occurred with Kachemak Bay about belugas, | imagine we’d have to do something about that. Mr. Thrall: Any filings we'd have to do for water rights and starting the coastal process — | would like to start those sooner, rather than later. Mr. Carey: We did that already. We filed for a water right a year ago. Ms. Walker: You did what? Did you really? Did you get a letter? Mr. Carey: An email from Christie Ballard. Ms. Walker: Christie Ballard is ACMP process. You would have got a letter from me. Mr. Carey: We'll have to look around, but we did receive a letter. Ms. Walker: OK, two separate things. | would have sent you an incomplete letter of application and gave you a priority date, file number, etc. Mr. Carey: We wanted to file prior to starting the process with the BPMC and getting public, just in case we'd have our meeting and then somebody else would jump on and file for water rights so we wanted to get it in early. Ms. Walker: | would suggest if you have not yet done so, filing for water rights soon. Mr. Carey: We will check on that. Mr. Miller: How much did you put in for? Mr. Carey: Based on the stuff from the 90’s, | think we just ended up putting in 45,000 acre feet of water, something like that. The average for the two years may have been 4,000/acre feet. About 80% of the total, I’d have to look back on that one. Mr. Thrall: | do recall helping to work on both the water rights application and the ACMP application. R&M - is John on the phone. Mr. Carey: Kevin Pendergrast did most of the work. Mr. Thrall: Yes, | provided some assistance to him, but he pulled it all together. Mr. Mouw: | wanted to talk about fish surveys really quick again. Did you have the intention of doing additional surveys this summer if necessary. Mr. Carey: We felt that it was likely that we would get more fish data this summer. Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 16 Mr. Mouw: Linda and Jeff, I’d like to get in touch with our Kenai area staff and tie you in as well, Homer, and talk about fish surveys sooner, rather than later. We want something earlier than July that we could start talking about that now. Ms. Kahn: Yes, we were going to ask that question, so I’m glad you brought it up. Mr. Anderson: | have one other comment about the fish surveys that were done. There wasn’t any sampling done in the Skirmish Creek pond in late December? | think the beaver pond would be the best over wintering habitat in the watershed area. Mr. Brady: Yes, | think we can do more to understand what’s going on in Skirmish Creek. Mr. Anderson: You had some good recommendations from that report too. Mr. Carey: There’s a healthy population of both brown and black bears in that vicinity. Mr. Brady: We got a lot of good feedback! Jason and Monte, you guys get together with your fish & wildlife and fish & game staff on the peninsula. How can we mesh up our plans and your recommendations. Were you thinking of putting together comments to the report or some recommendations, what are your thoughts on that. Mr. Mouw: Bryan said you'd like to see a letter from each of the agencies.. Mr. Carey: If you write a joint letter, that’s fine too. Mr. Mouw: |’ll defer to Monte. Mr. Miller: | think what they’re going to need is going to have to be done sooner than later, so that if there’s going to be any early field sampling this year, it gets identified and done within the next couple of months, basically. Mr. Brady: Right now Bryan and | are talking about the possibility of going in for a spring sampling trip, just to get that early season, without getting into details of what the next phase of our study program is going to be. That’s one thing we hoped to do from the start last year. We hope to be able to pull that off sometime in May. The earlier we get some feedback the better -- it gives us time to work out what needs to go into the study plan. Mr. Miller: And to access and get the correct FRP’s from the state to be legal out there. That does take some time too. If you’re going to change what you’re doing, it needs to be re-identified in the FRP’s. Mr. Mouw: My eyes are always bigger than my stomach, but I'd like to gather up all these people as soon as possible to take advantage of the spring trip that you have CT EEEeeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeeT Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 17 scheduled as best as we can. We'll send out emails and make some phone calls and get back with you real soon to let you know what we can do. Mr. Carey: We will come up with tentative dates in May and if you want it so where your Kenai or Homer people want to go across at that time to see it that will be easy enough to arrange. | think Linda Kahn has been across there. Ms. Kahn: | have. So has Ken Gates. Mr. Brady: We can even put data loggers in to monitor the temperature at South Fork. Mr. Miller: That would be good. Temperature monitoring is so inexpensive. Another spot that might be of interest as far as, because we’re looking at sockeye and it would be another temperature monitor might be of interest in the beaver pond. You're going to have some runoff influence from above that will cause temperature variations. That might be very interesting scenario to see what the water run is warm, and with the runoff, that could be some useful information that wouldn’t be expensive to collect. Ms. Walker: Did you notice any ice up there? Mr. Brady: In the beaver pond, no we didn’t. The time to look at that would be early spring to see where you have open areas and before the ice goes out. The meeting was adjourned at 3:20 p.m. Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting 4/21/2011 Page 18 BATTLE CREEK FISHERIES FLOW MEETING THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 2011 @ 1:00 P.M. — 4:00 P.M. **PLEASE WRITE LEGIBLY** awn Obyk ARB MeclarK @ aidea, org arve Anpros2 LaA he nbrose © fomerb lectriacgm deter Meow |ADFEG jason mown @ oheslen gv MONTE MILLER hk DEt 6 movie ii [ley @alérbe-g ervey PLT we Lviv pled] © lasda for QUE Wwalkee No Fisheeces Ene BotHwer Von aa tA rellin as @ cere -~ co YA AGN PDE (ne Mug fit per 4 tier) Stoo (Anag? Ble “ 44 fuslivons beldche. Je * Mar» Qaze Ldn | elem Battle Creek = April 21, 2011 Location: Alaska Energy Authority 813 West Northern Lights Blvd Anchorage, Alaska 99503 771-3000 Parking behind the building off of W27th Ave 1PM: Meet & overview of project HDR 2010 Aquatic Surveys & Hydrology Discussion on acceptable “Ballpark” diversion amounts Discussion on 2011 Aquatic & Terrestrial Field Studies Teleconference number: 1-800-315-6338 Code 3065# May Clark From: Bryan Carey Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 1:56 PM To: May Clark Subject: FW: Teleconference Teleconference appears to be set up. From: Linda Twete Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 3:43 PM To: Bryan Carey Subject: RE: Teleconference Hi Bryan! Your teleconference has been scheduled for Thursday, April 21* for 10 lines from 9 to 12pm. The call in phone number is 1-800-315-6338. The recipients code# is 3065# and the originator’s code# is 30651#. The time and charges will be faxed to me referencing Susitna. From: Bryan Carey Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 2:46 PM To: Linda Twete Subject: RE: Teleconference Please set up another teleconf for that morning 9 AM to noon. 10 lines. Reference Susitna. From: Linda Twete Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 12:59 PM To: Bryan Carey Subject: RE: Teleconference Hi Bryan! Your teleconference has been scheduled for Thursday, April 21* for 10 lines from 1 to 4pm. The call in phone number is 1-800-315-6338. The recipients code# is 3065# and the originator’s code# is 30651#. The time and charges will be faxed to me referencing Battle Creek. From: Bryan Carey Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 12:44 PM To: Linda Twete Subject: Teleconference Please set up a teleconference for Thursday April 21 from 1 PM to 4 PM 10 lines reference Battle Creek. Bryan Carey, P.E. AEA & AIDEA (907) 771-3065 From: Bryan Carey Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 12:52 PM To: Shauna Howell Ce: May Clark Subject: RE: Resource Agency Meetings Thanks, do not expect to go through lunch. Recorded only so much as it may help on the minutes then the recording can be deleted. A sign in sheet for each meeting would be helpful. Morning would be Watana Pre-Gap Meeting and afternoon would be Battle Creek Fisheries Flow Meeting. From: Shauna Howell Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 11:55 AM To: Bryan Carey ‘ Cc: May Clark Subject: Re: Resource Agency Meetings I am fine with May assisting you with these meetings on Thursday. I can sit in there at lunch time if you go through lunch so she gets her lunch hour still. Do you just want notes or for it to be recorded and minutes? Shauna's iPhone On Apr 19, 2011, at 11:26 AM, "Bryan Carey" <bcarey@aidea.org> wrote: On this Thursday I have two meetings with resource agencies. IN the morning from 9-12 I have a meeting with them on Susitna Watana and in the afternoon from 1-4 on the Battle Creek project at Bradley. I believe it may be a good idea to have notes/minutes taken. Could May or someone else do this? Bryan Carey, P.E. AEA & AIDEA (907) 771-3065