Glossary (Updated 2013)

anadromous fish Fish, such as salmon and lamprey, that hatch in freshwater, migrate to the ocean, where they grow, and then return to freshwater as mature fish to spawn.

anthropogenic Produced or caused by humans.

artificial propagation Using a human-controlled system to spawn, incubate, hatch and/or raise fish.

basin See watershed.

batholith See Idaho batholith.

B-run steelhead Summer steelhead that are greater than 78 cm in length.

BA Biological assessment

baseline monitoring In the context of restoration, baseline monitoring is done before implementation to establish historical and/or current conditions against which progress or lack of progress can be measured.

BCF Bureau of Commercial Fisheries

Best Management Practices (BMPs) An action or combination of actions that are the most effective and practical means (including technological, economic, and institutional) of preventing or reducing non-specific sources of water pollution. The term is also used in other fields of natural resource management.

BIA Bureau of Indian Affairs

BLM Bureau of Land Management

BO or BiOp Biological Opinion

Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) Created in 1937, the agency markets and distributes power generated by the Federal Columbia River Hydroelectric System and provides funding for salmon recovery projects under the Northwest Power Act.

BPA See Bonneville Power Administration.

broodstock Adult fish that produce the next generation of fish.

CBFWA Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority

CCT Confederated Colville Tribes

ceded area Territory transferred from one government to another.

CFF Commission of Fish and Fisheries

Clean Water Act A federal statute with the primary goal of restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters. The act delegates the authority to develop and implement water quality standards to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA also acts to ensure that each state’s water quality standards and pollution control programs are consistent with the act’s purposes.

COE or USCOE U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Columbia Basin Fish Accords (Accords) Ten-year agreements between federal agencies, tribes, and states to work together to protect and restore Columbia Basin fish and wildlife resources. The agreement with the Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Yakama tribes and the Bonneville Power Administration, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Bureau of Reclamation focuses on improving fish passage at federal dams, restoring habitat, and using hatcheries to rebuild anadromous fish populations. The agreement extends through September 2018. See Accords and Accords Partners.

Columbia River Fish Management Plan (CRFMP) A consent decree approved by and entered as an order of the district court in U.S. v. Oregon, in which the parties to U.S. v. Oregon may exercise their sovereign power in a coordinated and systematic manner to protect and rebuild upper Columbia River fish runs and allocate their harvest between Indian and non-Indian fisheries.

Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) A coordinating fisheries agency, founded in 1977 by the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Yakama tribes—the four Columbia River tribes that reserved fishing rights in 1855 treaties with the United States government. CRITFC, through its staff of biologists, policy analysts, law enforcement officers, and other specialists, strives to protect the tribes’ fishing rights and works to restore the fish resources upon which tribal religion, culture and livelihood depend.

Columbia River Treaty (CRT) A 1964 agreement between the United States and Canada.

COLTEMP (Columbia Temperature Model) A simulation model describing salmon passage through the Columbia and Snake River hydropower system.

Co-managers The tribes, federal fish agencies and Idaho, Oregon and Washington state fish agencies. See Columbia River Treaty.

cotenancy An interest and possession in real property by several distinct titles but by unity of possession, or any joint ownership or common interest with its grantor.

CRFMP See Columbia River Fish Management Plan.

CRiSP Columbia River Salmon Passage Model

CRITFC See Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission

CTUIR Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation

CTWSIR Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation

DFOP Detailed Fisheries Operating Plan

DOE Washington Department of Energy

downstream migration The journey of young salmon or lamprey from streams and rivers to the ocean.

DPS Discrete Population Segment

ecosystem services The functions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that make them up, sustain and fulfill human life.

Endangered Species Act (ESA) A federal statute with a primary goal of protecting threatened and endangered species and the ecosystems on which they depend. Under the act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has the authority to designate species for protection and the responsibility to develop recovery plans. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), under an agreement with the USFWS, administers the ESA for Pacific salmon.

EPA U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

ESA see Endangered Species Act.

escapement The number of salmon surviving to return to a specified point of measurement. Spawning escapement consists of those fish that survive to spawn.

ESU Evolutionarily Significant Unit

FCRPS Federal Columbia River Power System

FELCC Firm Energy Load Carrying Capacity

FERC Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

fiduciary A person or institution that manages money or property for another and that must exercise a standard of care in such management activity imposed by law or contract.

First Foods The traditional foods of the indigenous peoples of North America. For the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Spring and Yakama tribes, these foods—water, salmon, deer, roots and berries—are celebrated for the vital sustenance they provide and for their religious, cultural, economic and medicinal importance. See First Foods.

fish ladder (also known as fishway) A series of ascending pools of water, constructed to enable salmon or other fish to swim upstream around or over a dam. Resembles a stairway.

fish screen A meshlike structure placed across a water intake, pipe or passageway to divert fish from the intake.

flow The rate at which water passes a given point on a stream or river; often expressed as cubic feet per second (cfs).

FLUSH (Fish Leaving Under Several Hypotheses) A simulation model describing salmon passage through the Columbia and Snake River hydropower system.

FPC Fish Passage Center

FPE Fish Passage Efficiency

FTE Full-Time equivalent employees

FWP Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program

genetics The study of heredity and variation in organisms of the same or related kinds.

genotypic Pertaining to the genetic make-up of an organism.

habitat The place where a plant or animal lives and grows.

HCP Habitat Conservation Plan

HGMP Hatchery and Genetic Management Plan. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) requires salmon hatchery programs in areas with ESA-listed populations to complete a HGMP and submit it to the federal government for approval. The plan describes the composition and operation of individual hatchery programs.

hydrograph A representation of water levels over time.

hypothesis An unproved logically consistent theory tentatively accepted to explain certain facts or to provide a basis for further investigation, argument, etc.

ICFRU Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit

Idaho batholith The mountainous area in north-central Idaho composed primarily of granitic parent rock. Soils weathered from this parent rock are generally non-cohesive and prone to erosion.

IDFG Idaho Department of Fish and Game

inbreeding depression A reduction in fitness resulting from mating between close relatives.

infectious hematapoietic necrosis (IHN) A virus that can kill salmonids including chinook, sockeye and steelhead; the most severe outbreaks occur when fish are young (i.e., fry or fingerlings).

IPC Idaho Power Company

ISP Integrated System Plan

juvenile Young fish, usually two years of age or less and not able to spawn..

LIDAR A remote sensing method that uses lasers to measure variable distances to the earth. Combined with other data, this technology produces accurate, three-dimensional information. LIDAR stands for light detection and ranging.

LLC Limited Liability Company

LRMP Land Resource Management Plan

LSRCP Lower Snake River Compensation Plan

mainstem The main channel of a river as opposed to tributary streams and smaller rivers that feed into it.

MCPUD Mid-Columbia Public Utilities Districts

Mitchell Act A federal statute passed in 1938 to mitigate for fishery damage caused by Bonneville Dam and subsequent federal water projects; and implemented by state and federal agencies primarily through hatchery programs that resulted in the taking of upper Columbia and Snake river salmon as broodstock for downriver hatcheries.

mitigation Actions taken to help compensate for damage, such as human-caused damage to fish and wildlife resources. Mitigation for fish losses often takes the form of hatchery production.

mortality The death of fish from natural or human causes.

natural production Fish that are raised and return to spawn in streams, either by natural spawning or by outplanting hatchery fish.

NCASI National Council of the Paper Industry for Air and Stream Improvement, Inc.

NMFS National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Northwest Power Act The Pacific Northwest Electric Power Planning and Conservation Act of 1980 (also known as the Regional Power Act), authorized the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and called for the development of a Columbia Basin fish and wildlife mitigation program to be funded by the Bonneville Power Administration. See Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NPCC) The NPPC, authorized by the Northwest Power Act, consists of eight members appointed by the governors of Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Under the federal act, NPCC is charged with the development of a fish and wildlife program to protect, mitigate, and restore Columbia Basin fish and wildlife (including related spawning grounds and habitat) harmed by hydroelectric dams.

Northwest Power Planning Council (NPPC) now the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. See above.

NPT Nez Perce Tribe

NPTEC Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee

NRC National Research Council

ODEQ Oregon Department of Environmental Quality

ODFW Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife

outbreeding depression A reduction in fitness resulting from mating distant relatives potentially causing problems in adaptation.

outplanting See supplementation.

PAC Production Advisory Committees

passage The movement of migratory fish through a river system.

PCSRF Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund

PGE Pacific General Electric

PIT-tags Passive Integrated Transponder tags are used to identify salmon for monitoring and research purposes. These microchips are inserted in the body cavity of the fish and decoded at select monitoring sites.

phenology A branch of science dealing with the relationships between climate and periodic biological phenomena, such as plant flowering or fish migration.

phenotypic Pertaining to the visible or otherwise measurable physical characteristics of an organism.

PNL Pacific Northwest Laboratories

population A group of organisms of a species living in a certain area.

PRP Project Review Process

PSC Pacific Salmon Commission

PSMFC Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission

PST Pacific Salmon Treaty

PUD Public Utilities District

RASP Regional Assessment of Supplementation Projects

rearing The juvenile life stage of anadromous fish that is spent in freshwater rivers, streams, and lakes before migrating to the ocean.

recruit A fish of sufficient size to be subject to harvest and/or a mature fish arriving at a spawning area.

redd A spawning nest dug into gravel in a stream bed by an adult salmon.

riparian The region adjacent to bodies of water, such as streams, springs, rivers, ponds, and lakes.

run A population of fish of the same species consisting of one or more stocks migrating at a discrete time.

salmonid A fish of the Salmonidae family, which includes salmon and trout.

SAP Scientific Advisory Panel

SBT Shoshone Bannock Tribes of Fort Hall

sedimentation The settling of silt or any matter in bodies of water.

smolt A juvenile salmon migrating to the ocean and undergoing physiological changes (smoltification) to adapt its body from a freshwater to a saltwater environment.

smolt-to-adult returns Survival rate of a salmon population from the smolt to adult life stages, calculated by estimating the number adults returning to either Bonneville or Lower Granite dams divided by the initial number of smolts released and/or migrating from rearing areas.

spawner A mature fish that produces eggs or sperm.

species Basic category of biological classification. In sexually reproducing organisms, a group of interbreeding individuals not normally able to interbreed with other groups. Under the ESA, a species can be either a biological species, biological sub-species, or distinct population segment of a biological species.

SRIT Snake River Implementation Plan

SRSRT Snake River Salmon Recovery Team

STFA State and Tribal Fish Agency Analytical Team

stock A group of fish that spawn together in a particular stream during a particular season that generally do not interbreed with any other group of their species that spawns at a different time.

straying The tendency of some anadromous fish to return and spawn in streams other than those in which they were born.

subbasin A designated watershed with a single entry river into either the Snake or Columbia River basins.

supplementation The act of releasing young, artificially propagated fish into natural spawning and rearing habitat. As adults, these fish will return to spawn naturally in the stream where they were released rather than returning to the propagation facility. (Also called outplanting.)

TAC Technical Advisory Committee

tailrace The canal or channel immediately downstream of a dam’s powerhouse and spillway that carries water away from the dam.

TEK Traditional Ecological Knowledge

TIR Technology used to measure and depict stream temperature patterns over multiple spatial scales. TIR stands for thermal infrared radiometer.

total maximum daily load (TMDL) Under the Clean Water Act, the total amounts of different pollutants allowable for a particular watershed.

tributary A stream of lower order than the stream or river it joins. For example, the Clearwater River is a tributary of the Snake River, which is a tributary of the Columbia River.

U.S. v. Oregon The federal court case that upheld the treaty fishing rights of the Columbia River treaty tribes in a 1969 decision. The case remains under the court’s jurisdiction. Federal District Judge Robert Belloni recognized the rights of tribes to fish at all usual and accustomed fishing places and rules that the tribes are entitled to a “fair share” of the fish runs. The decision holds that the state is prohibited from discriminating against treaty fishing and that state power is limited in regulating treaty Indian fisheries, i.e., the state can regulate only when “reasonable and necessary for conservation.”

U.S. v. Washington A 1974 federal court case that reaffirmed Puget SoundWestern Washington tribes’ reserved rights to 50% of harvestable salmon. Subsequent proceedings ruled that the treaty right included the right to harvest hatchery fish and imposed a duty on the state to protect salmon habitat. The Yakama Nation is a party in the case, which like U.S. v. Oregon continues under the jurisdiction of the federal district court.

United States-Canada Pacific Salmon Interception Treaty (also called the Pacific Salmon Treaty or PST) Signed in 1985, the United States-Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty limits each country’s interception of the other’s salmon to promote the ability of stocks to rebuild in both nations. The two countries’ governments made new treaty agreements in 1999 and most recently in 2008.

upstream migration The return of adult salmon from the ocean to inriver areas where they were born and where they will spawn the next generation.

USBOR or BOR U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

USCOE or COE U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

USDA U.S. Department of Agriculture

USFS U.S. Forest Service

USFWS U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

watershed The drainage area contributing water, organic matter, dissolved nutrients and sediments to a river or lake. Used interchangeably with basin or subbasin.

waterspreading The illegal or unauthorized use of federally subsidized water for irrigation.

WDOE Washington Department of Ecology

WDF Washington Department of Fisheries

WDFW Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

WDW Washington Department of Wildlife

WPPSS Washington Public Power Supply System

YIN Confederation Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Indian Nation

YN Yakama Nation; Confederation Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Indian Nation

__________

Definitions are provided for additional clarification; they have no legal significance.

Back to Top Back to Top