**Minutes of the 19 November 2003 meeting of the Oregon and Northern
California Coast (ONCC) Technical Recovery Team (TRT) Oregon Coast Work
Group (OCWG), Adair, Oregon**

**Attendance.** *OCWG Members:* Tom Nickelson, Gordie Reeves, Pete
Lawson, Tom Wainwright, Chuck Huntington, Tommy Williams; *Staff:*
Heather Stout, Rosemary Furfey, Bridgette Lohrman; *Visitors:* Kaitlin
Lovell (Trout Unlimited), Stan van de Wetering (Siletz Tribes).

The meeting convened at 10:20 am.

1\. **Introductions.** Kaitlin Lovell and Stan van de Wetering were
introduced.

2\. **Review of Minutes (Stout).** Minutes of the 14 October meeting
were approved with corrections and will be posted on the NWFSC website
().

3\. **SONCC Update (Williams).** Tommy reminded us that meeting handouts
need a "DRAFT" stamp, so they are not misconstrued. The SONCC workgroup
met yesterday (18 November) in Arcata. The group discussed isssues of
horizontal and vertical line placement on the population isolation
graph, and decided tentative subdivisions of major basins in the SONCC.
The group also examined a multivariate analysis of the physical
environment as a possible means to subdivide and classify populations.
There is a desire to extend the intrinsic potential calculations to
include a stream-temperature mask, but that is problematic for
historical populations, as historical temperature measurements are not
available.

3\. **Population Structure (Reeves). ** Gordie has prepared a draft
writeup about Oregon coast coho population structure, attempting to
explain the concepts in layperson\'s terms. Comments are welcome, but
should wait until the writeup is seen in context with the whole draft
population report, which is targeted to be out to the workgroup on 25
November, with comments due back on 3 December. There was discussion of
whether we should drop the word "functionally" from the "functionally
independent" category; the decision was to retain it, as it clearly
distinguishes this category from the "potentially independent" category.

**ACTION**: All workgroup members will review the text before 3
December.

**4. Intrinsic Potential and Historic Abundance (Nickelson). ** Tom
handed out his estimates of historic abundance of coho salmon in Oregon
coast basins, based on summing the product of smolt densities for high
quality habitats with estimated historic intrinsic potential in each
basin, then converting smolts to adults based on a maximum 10% marine
survival estimate. In the major basins, these estimates were compared
with estimates based on peak cannery pack, assuming a 40% harvest rate;
most were comparable. The intrinsic-potential-based estimate was higher
than the catch-based estimate in basins that substantial impact from
splashdams at the time of the catch estimates.

He then used these estimates of potential historical adult abundance as
the X-axis in the isolation analysis graph. A proposal was made to set
the horizontal line in this analysis at the 95% native return level, as
this line separates populations that are net donors (above the line)
from those that are net receivers (below the line), under the
assumptions of the migration model used to construct the graph. While
there was agreement that this point is the most logical division within
the context of the model used, discussion focused on how precisely we
need to define this line in terms of how much the definition will affect
viability analyses and management down the road. There was also a
proposal to place the vertical line at a peak historical run size of
15,000, which is roughly equivalent to 15-18 miles of high quality
habitat in earlier work with the Nickelson-Lawson model. These criteria
were tentatively accepted.

**ACTION**: The report needs to include discussion of the meaning of the
lines and how sensitive viability analyses and management might be to
the position of these lines.

**5. Public Comment.** None was offered.

**6. Umpqua Basin.** We initially considered four alternative divisions
of the Umpqua Basin: (1) Upper and Lower; (2) Upper, Lower, and Smith;
(3) North, South, Mainstem, and Lower; and (4) as in 3, but with Smith
separated from Lower. It was noted that the Smith was not an historical
population, because of a barrier low in the system, but should be
considered as a possible separate modern population. Discussion focused
on reasons for/against separating the North Umpqua and South Umpqua as
populations: in favor of the split, ecoregion and stream temperature
differences were noted; against the split was the argument that habitat
in the North Umpqua was low in the system, in proximity to and
ecologically similar to habitat in the South Umpqua. Ongoing genetic
analyses may shed more light on this question.

Discussion then narrowed on two proposals: subdividing geographically
based on 4^th^-level Hydrologic Units (HUCs), which would result in
three populations, and subdividing into two populations based on the
major ecoregion break just below the mouth of Elk Creek. Tentatively, we
decided to go with the second alternative, but will reconsider this
issue later when more information may be available.

ACTION: Tom N. will resummarize the IP calculations for this
subdivision. He will also summarize the discussion of this for the
report.

5\. **Task Reports**

a\) Coordination with state (Furfey)---NMFS staff met with Tom Beiler
(Governor\'s office) regarding the state analysis of the Oregon Plan.
There will be a full NMFS-Oregon coordinating meeting in early December,
where there will be discussion of the upcoming (March) FR notice on
revised ESA listings and of NOAA and public involvement in the state
review of the Oregon Plan.

b\) National Recovery Coordinators\' Conference (Furfey)---Rosemary
attended this conference. Revised DRAFT joint (NMFS/USFWS) Recovery
Planning Guidelines are available. There is no timeline for finalizing
the guidelines, but the draft will be used to guide our recovery
planning efforts.

c\) NWR activities (Furfey)---The NMFS Northwest Regional Office is
formalizing cross-division recovery domain teams to provide better
integration of decision-making for listed salmon. A draft of the
"Recovery Planning and Status Report" will be out for comment soon.
There is a northwest TRT chairs meeting with the regional office next
week. The Siltcoos-Takhenitch coho fishery decision will be out next
week.

d\) Outreach Update (Lohrman)---Bridgette and Rosemary are continuing to
make presentations to watershed councils and basin planning workgroups
on the coast. OSU is sponsoring a "Restoration Priorities Workshop" in
March. Bridgette has completed analysis of her needs assessment for
watershed coordinators, and the report on this is almost complete. A
public roll-out of the population report is tentatively scheduled for
late January---a firmer date is needed to begin planning the event.

6\. **Population Report Schedule (Stout).** The plan is to get a rough
draft out to workgroup members next week, with comments back to Heather
by 3 December. A complete draft for review by the full ONCC TRT should
be out by 9 December, to be discussed at the full TRT meeting in Santa
Cruz 16 December.

**7. Other Business.** There was a CHART meeting last week, the group is
making good progress on critical habitat analysis.

8\. **Future meetings. ** Full TRT meeting 16 December, Santa Cruz. We
will discuss the future schedule for OC workgroup meetings at that time.

8\. **Public Comment.** None.

9\. **Adjourned.**