South Bend Washington. Keith Wolf and his staff at Golder Associates was retained by the Willapa Bay Fisheries Enhancement Group to perform planning, design, engineering, construction, monitoring and reporting for multiple salmon recovery projects in southern Willapa Bay. Over 118 projects were identified and developed as an integrated and prioritized plan to implement and fund these projects over a ten-year period.
Keith led the technical team for this group providing the Citizens Review Committee with a biological strategy under the Federal Pacific Salmon Recovery Act. This strategy is still being used to develop salmon habitat recovery and protection programs in the lower and mid-Columbia river region.
Keith Wolf was a founding member of this state, federal and local group. He organized the structure, bylaws and missions for this Board and its staff. Keith served for five years as a staff representative and alternate board member for the Colville Tribes. This is one of five statewide groups that consist of state, federal, local and tribal governments facilitating distribution of project approvals and awards from the Washington State Salmon Recovery Funding Board’s oversight of the congressional appropriated Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund.
Keith was a founding member and served on the Executive Steering Committee of this regional group of state, tribal and federal representatives or five years. The PNAMP focused on integrating fisheries and aquatic monitoring methods to ensure consistency and transparency in science and evaluation. Keith represented the Colville Tribes, the first tribal entity to sign the Charter, and chaired the Fish Monitoring Technical Group which authored the first major peer-reviewed publication on tagging and telemetry science. Keith also initiated a Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry initiative and introduced the Monitoring Methods web-based information system concept.
Keith assisted the State Board as it organized to distribute funds through the regional boards and develop its allocation criteria. He sat on two technical committees and acted as a subcontractor to develop a benefit/cost model using on-the ground monitoring to determine specific categories of projects that returned the highest biological benefit for fund dollars. Keith participated in the first twelve years of annual funding rounds. This board was chaired by William (Bill) D. Ruckelshaus – the first and third Administrator of the US EPA.
These direct funding agreements, developed in coordination with the Columbia Basin Accords, FERC relicensing and ESA Habitat Conservation Plans, support the “no net impact” standard for mid-Columbia hydropower projects. Plan actions seek to achieve a combined 91% project survival rate for migrating juvenile and adult salmon and steelhead, improve hatchery practices, and fund substantial tributary habitat projects. The program represents a cost share with the Bonneville Power Administration, the tribes and PUDs. Keith Wolf represented the Colville tribes in the negotiations and was the developer and manager of the Colville Tribes’ Science Program who were responsible for implementing the funding program actions.
The Regional Assessment Advisory Committee advises the Council and the region on technical aspects of the biological assessment of subbasins under the subbasin planning program. The Committee’s primary function is to advise the Council on how to conduct subbasin assessments that are technically sound, and that are understandable and useful to planners that will participate in the development of subbasin plans. In performing this function, the Committee coordinates, synthesizes, and reconciles the various assessment tools including those being used by the Council, National Marine Fisheries Service, and US Forest Service, state, tribes, EPA or other applicable techniques.
Keith Wolf provided policy and technical assistance to the Colville Tribes for these Accord negotiations. These partnerships were struck to balance the agencies’ needs to perform their missions of navigation, flood risk management, hydropower production, fish and wildlife mitigation and recreation, water supply and irrigation, in a manner consistent with tribal trust and treaty rights. These agreements support interim and adaptive management measures during review of the ESA Biological Opinion for the Federal Columbia River Power Systems and provided states and tribes more than $950 million to implement projects benefiting salmon, steelhead and other fish and wildlife at on the Columbia and Snake rivers. In 2017, an extension of the Accords provided an additional 900 million dollars of continuing funding.
Keith Wolf and his staff conducted biological delineation using diver and underwater video surveys of distribution and abundance of eelgrass and shellfish along routes of proposed submerged cable crossings. Keith provided guidance to avoid or minimize impacts and worked to establish appropriate mitigation for unavoidable adverse impacts. Obtained State of Washington, Department of Fish and Wildlife, Hydraulic Project Approval and United States Army Corps of Engineer permits.
Keith Wolf and his staff led a review of State of Washington Water Quality Standards and Criteria. The review included Temperature Criteria Washington DEQ, December 2000, Criteria for Protecting Aquatic Life in Washington’s Surface Water Quality Standards: Dissolved Oxygen Washington DEQ, Chapter 173-201A WAC Water Quality Standards for Surface Waters of the State of Washington and a review of the draft revised WAC language. Over 450 documents were reviewed in support of the draft criteria to evaluate the technical soundness of the proposed changes to provide management recommendations for rule change and adoption.