Commencement Bay-Wide Monitoring Program 2008 DRAFT Scope of Work
December, 2007
The Commencement Bay Natural Resource Trustees have been monitoring
Commencement Bay Restoration Project sites in and near Tacoma, Washington. The eight sites monitored include Yowkwala, Skookum Wulge, Mowitch, Middle Waterway
(Simpson/Trustees), Middle Waterway (City of Tacoma), Olympic View, Sha Dadx and Jordan. This scope describes activities for year 7 of the monitoring program, the 2008 field season.
Task 1. Project Management
Ridolfi will prepare monthly progress reports during active phases of the project. We have assumed that the period of performance will be approximately 13 months therefore
anticipate thirteen monthly progress reports. The monthly progress reports will be prepared such that the activities and costs for each restoration project are separately identified. The report will describe:
• The work conducted in the previous month, • The work planned for the subsequent month, • Deliverables submitted the previous month,
• Deliverables planned for the subsequent month, and • Problem areas with proposed solutions, if any.
Task 2. Monitoring
The Commencement Bay-wide Monitoring Program States that the following will be monitored:
Physical Monitoring Criteria will be monitored in Year 7: Intertidal Areal Coverage
Intertidal Stability Tidal Circulation
Elevation & Channel Morphology Sediment Structure
Biological Monitoring Criteria will be monitored in Year 7: Marsh Development & Areal Coverage
Marsh Development & Species Composition Marsh Development / Plant Vigor
Riparian Vegetation Coverage Fish Access / Presence
Invertebrate Prey Resource Production Bird Use
Primary Production Insect Production Plankton Presence
Chemical Monitoring Criteria will be monitored in Year 7: Water Quality
Recommended Monitoring Activities Year 7: Aerial photos
Marsh Development/Species Composition Riparian Vegetation Aerial Coverage Plant surveys: See attachment A Snorkel survey for fish at Jordan Block netting for fish at Olympic View
Beach seining for fish at Puget Creek, Olympic View, Middle Waterway (2 sites), Skookum Wulge, and Yowkwala
Bird surveys (Jordan and Sha Dadx) Water quality (data logger)
Physical Success Criteria X
Aerial photographs will be recorded at Middle Waterway (two sites), Olympic View,
Mowitch, Squally Beach, Yowkwala, Jordan, Parsons & Hauff, Old Soldiers Home and Sha Dadx. These will be used to examine overall site conditions and vegetation coverage. The work product from this task will be a color photograph of each site. These photographs will not be orthorectified. The extent of photos will include a buffer of a minimum of 100 feet on all sides of the property boundary. Electronic copies of the aerial photographs and a single color print of each site will be delivered to the Trustees.
Biological Success Criteria 2 – Marsh Development/Species Composition
This task involves conducting fieldwork required to estimate vegetation cover at the Mowitch, Squally Beach, Middle Waterway (Trustee) and Jordan restoration sites. The fieldwork will be conducted according to the schedule outlined in the Restoration
Monitoring Program (Commencement Bay Natural Resource damage Assessment of CB/NRDA, 2001).
In this task mean area of plant cover will be estimated using visual cover estimates within fixed quadrats. Sampling will occur in late summer to be consistent with previous years sampling time.
of permanent plots using visual estimation, reduction of observer error is critical to producing accurate data. Techniques for the reduction of observer error should be implemented and documented, including review of the previous year’s photos and cover estimates, use of subdivided quadrat frames for species coverage.
Biological Success Criteria 6 – Riparian Vegetation Areal Coverage.
Sampling methods will be the same as modified for sampling in year 2006. Data produced to date have documented trends in increased cover, but site parameters have fallen short of targets, or population estimates are not robust enough to indicate if target cover has been met. The protocol will be modified to reduce between plot variance and reduce the potential for observer error. Additional maintenance and planting actions are anticipated. This years sampling will result in a single more robust estimate of species cover to be used as a baseline of existing conditions.
Four sites will be sampled: Mowitch, Squally Beach, Middle Waterway (Trustee) and Jordan. Sampling will occur in the late summer for consistency with previous monitoring efforts.
2008 sampling will:
♦ Sample placement will change from a single transect based plot placement approach to a restricted random plot placement to produce a more representative random sample of buffer vegetation.
♦ Cover samples will change from a visual cover estimates in permanent 3 m3 plots to measured line intercept cover estimation on permanent transects to reduce observer error, increase replicability, and reduce between plot variation. Line intercept sampling will only capture woody, non-ground cover species, with herbaceous and groundcover sampled with visual estimates from (3) 0.5 X 2 m subplots.
A proposed revised protocol is attached. Transect length will not exceed 20m. Sample size will not exceed 25 transects per site for Mowitch and Simpson, and 12 transects for Squally Beach, or a total of 62 transects across three sites. Data will be processed into an Excel template to duplicate the data structure of the existing relational database with each nested transect as a single observation. This transitional data set will be provided as an independent deliverable.
Biological Success Criteria 7 Fish Access/Presence
This task involves conducting fieldwork required to monitor fish assemblage at the
Mowitch, Middle Waterway (Trustee and City), Yowkwala, Skookum Wulge, Olympic View Triangle, and Puget Creek restoration sites. The fieldwork will be conducted according to the schedule outlined in the Restoration Monitoring Program (Commencement Bay Natural Resource damage Assessment of CB/NRDA, 2001).
In this task the presence and absence of fish will be evaluated using block nets and beach seine nets. Block nets will be set at the Olympic View Triangle site just before high tide and allowed to “soak” until the tide recedes. Beach seine nets will be set parallel to the shoreline at the other five sites. Fish will be collected, sampled, and released.
Sampling will be conducted bi-weekly beginning in February and ending in mid-August for thirty-four sampling events. All fish will be identified to species. Ridolfi personnel will collect, identify, and measure the fork length (FL) of salmonids to the nearest millimeter (mm). If possible, hatchery fish will be identified by the presence of clipped fins or coded wire tags (CWT). Additionally, forage fish, sculpins, and bottom fish will be identified and measured before being released. The deliverable for this task will be a tabulation of fish count data by species, sampling event, and site.
Ridolfi will provide data interpretation and include the results of the sampling in a monitoring report.
In this task, the presence and absence of fish will be evaluated using snorkel surveys at the Jordan site only. Sampling will be conducted beginning in early April and ending in August. Sampling will be conducted every other week in July and August, and weekly in April, May, and June. All fish will be identified to species to the extent possible.
Biological Success Criteria 9 Bird Use
In this task, bird use will be observed and recorded for 1 to 2 hours per visit at the applicable sites. It is assumed that 10 visits (April through November) will be performed for this criteria, at Jordan and Sha Dadx.
Chemical Success Criteria 2 Water Quality/Quantity
Water quality will be measured during low flow summer months and early fall at Jordan, Middle Waterway, Mowitch, and Squally Beach (near outfalls). DO, pH, and salinity will be measured using a data-logger Samples will be collected from each site (2 at Squally Beach) and analyzed for metals, nutrients, and fecal coliform.
Task 3. Documentation
Database
Information collected in the field will be recorded on data sheets that will be incorporated into a program-wide monitoring database. The database will be a central repository for monitoring data collected under this plan. This task includes updating the database and creating reports to summarize the data.
Annual Monitoring Report
At the end of the monitoring fieldwork (nominally late fall/winter), data will be compiled in a monitoring report. The report will summarize field procedures and present tabular and
Additionally, the annual report will make recommendations for changes to monitoring protocols, if any, and adaptive management activities. If invasive species are noted on the restoration sites, the Trustees will be notified immediately.
Finally – this report will provide a summary that reviews, compares and contrasts all
previous monitoring reports completed under the Commencement Bay-wide program. The synthesis will evaluate the overall success of the restoration sites and monitoring
program.
A draft report will be submitted for comment within three months of completion of field activities. The contractor will meet with the government to present, review, and adjust the organization and analytical content of the report prior to it’s development. NOAA staff will work with Ridolfi to format the report.
Nested Line Intercept Sampling Protocol for Riparian Vegetation Paul Cereghino, NOAA Restoration Center
Monitoring Objectives
♦ Produce statistically robust population mean and variance estimates for cover of specified woody and ground vegetation layer taxa within a riparian zone
♦ Detect change in mean cover between this sample and a future sample following management activity
♦ Reduce potential for observer bias and reduce between sample variation to minimize confidence interval
Tools Required
Stakes for marking offset transects Data sheets
(3) 50 Meter Tapes
Random number table for placing transects and quadrats 0.5 x 2 m Quadrat for ground vegetation cover estimates
This sampling strategy aims to provide an efficient estimate of relative species dominance and canopy structure using a modified line-intercept technique. All sites described have a long narrow riparian buffer strip. Transects will be offset a random distance from a baseline located along the long side of the riparian buffer (Figure 1). Each transect will be parallel to the baseline. The beginning, middle, and end of each offset transect will be permanently marked. No more than 25 transects will be completed per site. Transect length will not exceed 20 meters.
Each transect will be a single observation. Woody plant cover will be measured using line intercept
measurements. Groundcover will be estimated using the mean of three nested 1 m3 quadrats, each placed randomly within each third of the transect (Figure 2).
Figure 1 – Transect Placement Diagram – The riparian polygon will be divided into sampling units by offset transects. Samples will be randomly placed along the offset transect.
Baseline
Offset transect Sample transects
Riparian Polygon
Figure 2 – Sample Design – Each transect is a single observation. Woody species cover will be estimated using line intercept. Groundcover will be estimated using mean visual estimates from three nested quadrats
Baseline Offset transect
Sample transects Groundcover quadrats
either forb or grammanoid. Those taxa determined to be ‘invasive’ will be identified on a site by site basis depending on management concern. For groundcover samples, 0.5 m by 2 m plots will be used. Non plant cover will be classified as large wood, litter, moss, or soil. Quadrats should be subdivided into a 0.25 m grid with each grid square equal to 12.5% for the purpose of increasing replicability and accuracy of cover estimates.
Pilot sampling should be conducted to determine transect length and sample size. Transect length will be optimized to overcome patchiness of vegetation. A length-species curve and length-variance curve will be used with an exploratory sample to determine optimal Transect length. Exploratory samples will be supplemented by additional samples to improve the mean.
If species cover data deviates substantially from a normal distribution, bootstrap-type resampling analysis will be used to provide a confidence interval estimate for each taxa. Groundcover plot data may be averaged by transect or considered independent samples for analysis.
Table 3. LOE and Cost for RIDOLFI Inc. Cost Estimate for Monitoring (Year 7) 2008 NOAA Contract No. AB133C-03-CQ-0002 Task Order No. 29
November 19, 2007
LEVEL OF EFFORT ESTIMATED COST
Project
Mgnt. Admin Admin Clerical Env. Sci. Env. Sci.
Tech/Spec Writer
Monitoring Specialist CAD/ GIS
Monitoring
Specialist LOE total Labor Cost ODCs &
Subs
10 % markup on
ODCs Subtotal $
Task Name PM Senior Mid Senior Level 2 Sr. Level 1 Level 1 Level 2
CW BR HD LH TB SD SL MC HG DA
Billing Rates ($/hour) $149.87 $130.76 $81.60 $62.97 $110.86 $72.74 $104.79 $62.11 $75.59 $80.00 Task 1 Project Management
General Project Management 70 2 8 6 120 206 $20,512 $100 $10 $20,622
Project Management- subtotal 70 2 8 6 0 120 0 0 0 0 206 $20,512 $100 $10 $20,622
Task 2 Monitoring
BSC 2 Marsh Development/Species Composition 120 120 240 $22,032 $2,892 $289 $25,213
BSC 6 Riparian Vegetation -Areal Coveral 120 120 240 $22,032 $2,892 $289 $25,213
BSC 7 Fish Access/Presence 8 394 288 348 1038 $74,052 $11,285 $1,129 $86,465 BSC 9 Bird Use 80 80 160 $12,219 $0 $0 $12,219 CSC X - Water Chemistry 20 24 44 $2,945 $1,834 $183 $4,963 PSC X - Aerial Photos 2 2 10 14 $1,289 $4,927 $493 $6,708 Monitoring- Subtotal 10 2 0 0 240 744 0 312 348 80 1736 $134,569 $23,830 $2,383 $160,782 Task 3 Documentation Database / Webpage 2 80 0 82 $8,683 $200 $20 $8,903
Annual Monitoring Report 16 20 120 80 40 20 296 $25,393 $400 $40 $25,833
Documentation - Subtotal 18 0 0 20 0 120 160 0 40 20 378 $34,076 $600 $60 $34,736
Task Total 98 4 8 26 240 984 160 312 388 100 2320 $189,157 $24,530 $2,453 $216,140
Fishing:
Env. Sci (Biologist): 43.5 days @ 8hrs/day = 348 hrs + 46 hrs for data entry +46 hrs for pm = 440hrs Monitoring Specialist: 36 days @ 8hrs/day = 288hrs
CAD/GIS: 43.5 days @ 8hrs per day = 348hrs Birding:
Env. Sci (Biologist): 80hrs (Monitoring oversight, travel, coordination)
Monitoring Specialist: 80hrs (Monitoring, travel, coordination) Jordan 1 zone surveyed; Sha Dadx 2 zones surveyed Plant monitoring:
Env. Sci (Biologist): 30 days @ 8hrs/day= 240hrs (Monitoring oversight, travel, coordination) Env. Sci (Senior): 30 days @ 8hrs/day= 240hrs (Monitoring oversight, travel, coordination) Terra Stat: $5,000
RIDOLFI Inc. Sampling and Analysis Plan Commencement Bay Year 7 Monitoring Novemb er 2007
Table 3. Analytical Methods, Containers, Preservation, and Holding Times
Number Duplicate MS/MSD Total Number Containers per Number of Holding Time
of Samples Samples Samples of Samples Sample of Containers (days)
Dissolved Metals EPA RCRA 8 metals 5 1 1 7 HDPE 1 liter 1 7 4°C, 1:1 HNO3 to
pH<3, field filtered 28/180
(2)
Total Nitrogen (TKN and NO2/NO3) 4500-Norg D and 4500-NO3 I 5 1 1 7 HDPE 500 mL 1 7 ≤6°C, 2 mL 9N
H2SO4 to pH < 2 28
Total Phosphorous 4500-P B 5 1 1 7 HDPE 500 mL 1 7 ≤6°C, 2mL 9N
H2SO4 to pH < 2 28
Fecal coliform SM 9222D 5 1 1 7 4 oz Corning 100 mL 1 7 Na2S2O3 Tab 6 hours
Notes:
(1) = Method 6010 (Ag, Cd, Cr, Cu, and Zn); EPA 200.8 (As and Pb); and EPA 7470/7471 (Hg) HDPE = High density polyethylene
EPA = Environmental Protection Agency SW = surface water sample
RCRA = Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (2) = 28 days for mercury; 180 days for other metals
Surface Water Sampling
Analyte Reference Method Container Type Size Preservation
Table 1: Projected fishing events for CB Monitoring Year 7 (2008).
February March April May June July Total
Eventsa 4.5 4.5 10 10 10 4.5 43.5
a: Number of fishing days per month
Block Net Beach Seining Snorkeling
Week of: Oly View Oly View MWW Tac MWW Sim Skookum Yowk. Puget Crk Jordan Days
Feb (11-15) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.5 Feb (25-29) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 Mar (10-14) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.5 Mar (24-28) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 April (7-11) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.5 April (14-18) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.5 April (21-25) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.5 April/ May (28 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.5 May (5-9) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.5 May (12-16) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.5 May (19-23) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.5 May (26-30) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.5 June (2-6) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.5 June (9-13) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.5 June (16-20) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.5 June (23-27) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.5 July (7-11) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 July (14-18) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2.5 Number of Events/Site 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 15 43.5 Notes:
Jordan takes about 4 hours (1/2 day) and two people.
Initially, Olympic View set netting and beach seining will be done in one day and no other sites will be visited on that day. This will allow constant attendance at the set net, which is critical to ensure fish are not left out of water.
