The Columbia Conservation District in cooperation with the US Forest Service Pomeroy Ranger District will be evaluating 23 sites with three transects at each site for cobble embeddeness and percent fines associated with the streambed (100 measurements per transects). At each transect every foot across the stream channel a rock will be picked up randomly and measured for the percent of rock covered by silt (how much of the rock is exposed to water and how much is below the stream bed, % embeddeness). This is a replication of 2005 study, (funded by Bonneville Power) completed with the same personnel and will help to show whether or not projects previously completed were reducing the cobble embeddedness and be a baseline for information gathering post 2005 School and 2006 Columbia Complex Fires.

The Pomeroy Ranger District conducts regular aquatic sampling surveys within National Forest lands. The surveys include sampling for cobble embeddedness and percent fines. During the summer of 2005, the District contracted with the Columbia Conservation District to conduct these monitoring protocols outside NFS lands on State and Private ground. The attempt here is to establish a baseline for restoration/rehabilitation projects funded and/or promoted by the Conservation and the Snake River Salmon Recovery Board. Site selection on private lands was based upon project locations and recovery planning reaches. Locations on State and Federal lands were derived from previous surveys. Funding always drives the amount of detail and the number of samples collected during surveys. For this reason simple, cheap and repeatable was part of the criteria selected for the protocols. Currently there is no set survey methodology agreed upon by field personnel within the region.