| |
Artificial Production Review Committee Meeting
Monday, August 9, 1999
NWPPC Conference Room, Portland, Oregon
Performance standards were again the order of the day for the
Production Review Committee (PRC). Brian Allee, who is chairing an
ad hoc work group on performance standards and indicators, presented a the
most recent working draft of the efforts to identify measurable
standards. Staffer Mark Fritsch distributed an updated list of the
subregions and subbasins to be included in the APR process, and asked the
other participants to review it for completeness. Bob Foster, of WDFW,
updated the group on recent progress toward assessing the database
available to the APR effort. Staffer Chip McConnaha provided an
overview of the Multi-Species Framework process, and it implications for
the APR and subbasin planning efforts. A meeting of a work group on
process and coordination (implementation) was convened in the
afternoon. A list of PRC attendees is attached to this report.
HIGHLIGHTS
Opening Comments
In the absence of Jim Waldo (who was ill), facilitator Mark Fritsch
welcomed everyone to today’s meeting, then led a review of the agenda
and a round of introductions.
Dan Evans noted that the majority of the last meeting of this group was
devoted to subbasin planning; we hope to build on that discussion at today’s
meeting, he said, but we need to put it into context with the overall
subbasin planning process in the region, which covers many other areas
besides artificial production. We need to bear in mind that we will
not be able to drive the subbasin planning process ourselves, he said; a
variety of other groups and processes are taking note of its importance as
a context for making decisions in the region. Evans suggested that
the group focus today on the particular needs of artificial production
within the subbasin planning process.
Evans observed that there are three or four entities, in addition to
the Production Review Committee, which are focusing on subbasin planning,
and are developing recommendations for various subbasins to be given
first-tier treatment. In other words, he said, it is timely for us
to look at this in the context of the overall picture. Evans said
Chip McConnaha would be providing a report later in today’s meeting on
the Framework process, and its potential role in coordinating and
integrating the inputs from these various groups. As a follow-up to
that, Evans said, we will discuss how we’re going to make some of these
important decisions, and how the program review will take place in FY’00.
Finally, said Evans, we need to spend a few minutes discussing the key
pieces of Section 3 – the Implementation piece of the policy document we’ve
been working on.
I. Update on APR Performance Standards/Indicators.
Brian Allee distributed Attachment 1, a document titled “Artificial
Production Review – Performance Standards/Indicators – Working Draft
#4.” He explained that this draft is not complete; the work group
still needs to go back through and provide more detail to the purpose
sections of the document. The first section to which we’ve added
detail is the Augmentation section, he explained.
Allee spent a few minutes going through the contents of Attachment 1;
please see the full text of the document for details of his
presentation. He explained that additional resident fish input is
also needed; the Council is setting up a meeting in Spokane on August 26
specifically to gather that input. Another meeting has been set for
August 13, to gather further resident fish input, to develop a fifth draft
of this document and to add detail to the purpose sections.
The basic conceptual idea is that Parts 1 and 2 of the Council’s
document is one level of detail, Allee said; we then have guidelines and
specific scientific comments on the APR program from the Science Review
Team, which will form another appendix; the next level of detail will come
through in Part 3, the Performance Standards and Indicators
document. As has been noted on numerous occasions, Allee said, the
next level of detail will come in the individual hatcheries and
subbasins. While some of us are interested in getting into more
detail in the Performance Standards/Indicators section, he said, perhaps
even to the level of experimental design, we can’t really do that in
this document.
In response to a question from Doug Dompier of CRITFC, Allee explained
that the research components of the Performance Standards/Indicators
section are necessary to show that there is a proactive approach to
dealing with the purported detrimental impacts of hatcheries on the wild
stocks – we need to be able to show Congress that, rather than simply
running a mindless program, there is some sort of evaluation going on, he
said. That’s the research component, Dompier agreed.
However, if straying is the risk we’re trying to limit, then your
standard should address straying, he said. Dompier recommended that
the Performance Standards/Indicators document include a straying standard
– 5% or 10% – rather than focusing on genetic impacts, which will take
years to measure.
Tim Stearns of Save Our Wild Salmon commented that, at this time, it is
unknown whether 10% straying is an acceptable number or not. My view
of how this ought to work is that we need to identify a modest number of
basins, and test a broad array of indicators in those basins, he said –
probably all of the things Brian has identified here. We then need
to take that group of indicators and ask managers and scientists to tell
us what the key driving issues are, he said. Then practically, we
can look at those issues that managers can make decisions about. The
next stage, once the managers and scientists identify the key indicators,
is to develop a much more streamlined process that can be used at 100
hatcheries, Stearns said. By doing this process first in a modest
array of test basins, he said, we will then be able to develop concrete
standards for things like straying rates. I see where you’re
trying to go with this, Stearns said, but I don’t think you can get
there directly – I think there is an interim step.
The other key thing to bear in mind, Stearns continued, is that we want
to put together a package that Congress will fund. It will be
counterproductive if research has to compete with operational items, such
as improved water supplies at existing facilities, or additional
improvements that have already been identified, he said. We need to
be mindful about how to separate the two, Stearns said, so that we don’t
create a climate in which managers are hostile to researchers.
Stephen Smith of NMFS commented that his understanding of performance
standards and indicators for hatcheries is that this forms the basis of a
program’s monitoring and evaluation plan. The monitoring and
evaluation plan for a hatchery should be addressing the benefits and risks
– the performance indicators – for the type of program at that
hatchery, he said. Research to test a hypothesis is something
totally different, and needs to be set up and conducted separately, Smith
said. There is no hypothesis testing going on in these performance
indicators, he said – we’re simply trying to gather information to
plot out how well we are achieving the purpose, and avoiding the risks,
inherent in the program.
Don Campton of the Fish and Wildlife Service noted that the Performance
Standards/Indicators document includes a mixture of purposes within some
of its individual purposes. We have identified four basic purposes,
he said – augmentation, preservation and conservation, mitigation and
research. Yet under “Augmentation Benefits – Performance
Standard 2,” genetic and life-history conservation is listed as one of
the benefits, Campton said. My recommendation would be that genetic
and life-history conservation is a purpose unto itself; from a structural
standpoint, it makes more sense to collate items or categories associated
with one of the four basic purposes under that particular purpose, Campton
said. My recommendation is that this Performance Standard 2 be moved
to the Preservation/Conservation purpose, Campton said. Basically,
we need to be careful we don’t mix apples and oranges in this document,
he said.
Campton also recommended that Table 1 – Conservation and Preservation
Purpose – be expanded. What I mean by that, he said, is that we
can have what we refer to as a traditional hatchery program, in which we
trap and spawn adults, then release their offspring as juveniles.
That type of program may be viewed as an augmentation project, in the
sense that one of its primary purposes is to provide fish for
fisheries. On the other hand, said Campton, there are a number of
those kinds of programs in which that’s not the only purpose – there
are a number of traditional-style hatchery programs that include the
purpose of maintaining the genetic diversity of the source population for
that program. They can also have a mitigation component, in the
sense that they are a replacement for natural spawning habitat lost due to
dam construction, Campton said.
Is it your view that we should develop a single performance standard
that applies to all hatchery purposes? Smith asked. No, Campton
replied – what I’m saying is that augmentation is intended to provide
fish for fisheries. There is also a conservation/preservation
purpose, intended to maintain the genetic and life-history diversity
associated with a population that is now being propagated artificially –
that can be a purpose unto itself, and it can also be a secondary purpose
under a mitigation program.
What you’re saying, then, is that an augmentation facility probably
has preservation/conservation benefits and obligations as well, said
Smith. If that’s the case, he said, then what we have listed here
is probably too narrow. That’s correct, Campton said – I just
want to be sure that it’s clear, to an outside reader, that many of our
traditional hatchery programs include the purpose of maintaining the
genetic and life-history diversity associated with the populations they’re
propagating.
To explain what our thinking was on that point, said Allee, using Young’s
Bay as an example, we need to have some way of analyzing whether that
program begins to drift from the original donor stocks which had the
life-history characteristics which contributed to the terminal
fishery. The language in this draft of the document was an attempt
to do that, for augmentation. The problem is, we got Table 1, said
Allee; we went down through the purposes, and preservation/conservation is
described as an emergency temporary measure that is specifically intended
to deal with the captive brood issue. We were attempting to deal
with that, he said, but in the Purpose section where we’re describing
these performance factors, there is more work to be done. I
understand what Don is saying, said Allee – what we need to figure out
is whether or not we’re satisfied with this description of the
purpose. What we were trying to say with Performance Standard 2,
which Don mentioned, was that there are probably life-history
characteristics which make that program important, and if so, they should
be measured.
Allee reminded the group that the next meeting of the Performance
Standards/Indicators subgroup has been set for the afternoon of Friday,
August 13 at CBFWA; again, he said, one of the main goals of that meeting
is to get more resident fish input. We will also be meeting in
Spokane on August 26, in an effort, again, to collect more input from the
resident fish managers, he said. We are not at all satisfied with
the way resident fish are currently treated in this document, Allee said;
we’ve asked for that input on a number of occasions, and we really don’t
want to send this document out before it is received and
incorporated. Allee said another meeting has been set for September
8 at the Council offices in Portland, with the Performance
Standards/Indicators group meeting in the morning, and the Implementation
group meeting in the afternoon. The intent is to develop a final
draft, to be submitted to this group at its September 13 meeting, Allee
said.
II. Updated List of Subbasin Plans.
Mark Fritsch distributed Attachment 2, an updated list of subregions
and subbasins, expanded to reflect the input received at the last meeting
of this group. Basically, these are the primary tributaries to the
mainstem Columbia that have, or could have, anadromous fish, Fritsch
said. He asked the group to consider, first, whether all of the
subregions and subbasins included on the current list are appropriate and,
second, whether this list should be included as an attachment.
The group discussed the level of detail included in the current list;
Allee commented that if the intent is to address individual watersheds in
the Lower Columbia, for example, that will involve a tremendous amount of
work. There is certainly nothing wrong with ultimately getting down
to that level of detail, he said, but if you enumerate the individual
watersheds in every subbasin, you’ve set yourself quite a task.
That’s true, Fritsch agreed – it comes down to how you define
watershed, subbasin etc. The way we’ve approached it so far is
that we have tried to identify every system that flows into the mainstem
Columbia.
Dompier observed that this is a very important question, because the
decisions about which tributaries and subbasins are to be used for
artificial production, and which will be used strictly to provide habitat,
will have a profound impact on the people who live in those areas.
It’s important for this list to be as inclusive as possible, he said, so
that we can be up-front in addressing the expectations and concerns of
those area residents.
Smith agreed, noting that there are two listed ESUs in the Lower
Columbia, with the possibility of a third on the way. I’m sure we’ll
be addressing onstream/upstream basins, he said, and if we are to develop
a process that can be applied to a variety of planning and decision-making
forums in the region, it’s important to have this level of specificity
in the Lower Columbia tributaries.
Campton suggested that it may be sufficient to pool at least some of
the smaller creeks into a group of creeks in a given geographic area; as
an example, he suggested the group of creeks between the Elochoman and the
Cowlitz. Smith agreed that this might be feasible.
Bill Bakke commented that the more you aggregate, the more risk you
impose upon your management program. In the Lower Columbia River, at
least on the Oregon side, there has been considerable aggregation of
streams in terms of coho management; those populations have essentially
all gone extinct, he said. There were no spawning escapement
programs by creek, and there wasn’t really any identified management
program, by creek, for coho salmon. To the extent that we can list
these tributaries, and identify individual management programs for each
system, those management programs will be much more productive, Bakke
said. I wouldn’t want to back away from the current list of
subregions and subbasins, he said; in fact, I have a few more to add.
Fritsch reiterated his request that the group review this list and
provide any comments on its completeness to him. If there is an
opportunity to consolidate some of these creeks under a single geographic
heading without detrimentally impacting the management programs in those
systems, fine, he said. If there are other systems that need to be
included in this list, please let me know.
II. Update on APR Programs/GIS Database – Proposed Outline.
Foster noted that he had been assigned to assess the database available
to the APR effort; he distributed Attachment 3, a memo from Dick O’Connor,
Fish Resource and Data Systems Manager for WDFW and his agency’s
representative on the StreamNet Project Steering Committee. O’Connor’s
memo lays out some ideas about how an artificial production database might
be pulled together from the existing data sources – StreamNet, the
Regional Mark Processing Center and the PIT-Tag Center. It appears
that we have pretty good access to release information, Lohn said,
including at least some resident fish information. If we want to
expand the database, using the StreamNet structure, we can probably add
the available information on the goals and objectives for each facility
without too much difficulty, he said; we would simply need to make a
decision to do that.
Stearns commented that this database needs to be well-integrated –
while it will be extremely useful to have information about the artificial
production programs in a given subbasin at our fingertips, he said, it is
also necessary to integrate that with information about the status of the
habitat in a given area, streamflows over time, water quality over time,
where and how these fish are being harvested. If we’re serious
about managing these production programs in context, he said, this has to
be a well-integrated database. He noted that, in Washington alone,
habitat databases are maintained by several entities -- the Department of
Agriculture, the Department of Natural Resources and at least one
other. In addition, Stearns said, BPA maintains a fairly elaborate
GIS system which needs to be included in our database.
III. Subbasin Planning – A Common Approach.
Evans suggested that the group spend a few minutes discussing the
particular needs of the APR process, in the context of the regional
subbasin planning effort. Stearns said one of his goals for this
process was to be able to identify the reasons why two nearly-identical
production facilities may be yielding vastly different returns. We
need to be able to identify the things that are going wrong with one
facility, and right with another, he said – if there is cold, clear
water below one facility, and warm, silted water with a bunch of
agricultural diversions below another, we need to know that. We need
to be able to identify the problems and recommend solutions, he said, and
we won’t be able to do that unless we have a well-integrated and usable
database.
So you’re advocating a strong link between the artificial production
and the habitat and natural production components? one participant
asked. That’s correct, Stearns replied – we also need to be able
to identify where and how these fish are harvested, to the greatest extent
possible.
If the idea is that, within three years, we will identify each
individual hatchery, quantify its purpose and performance standards and,
within five years, evaluate whether those purposes and standards are being
met, we have to have that kind of comprehensive database, which can be
related to the subbasin initiatives that are going on simultaneously in
other forums, Allee said. We have to be able to evaluate strategies
in light of production costs, the cost of restoring comparable habitat,
subbasin-specific escapement goals, existing management plans, U.S. v.
Oregon etc. – all of those factors need to be integrated into the
subbasin planning process, he said.
Bakke said one of the Artificial Production needs, from his
perspective, is the creation of a biological diversity baseline, including
life-history and genetic variability, for both hatchery and wild
populations, based on currently-available information. In addition,
he said, I would like to see cost-to-catch information, for all fisheries,
from artificial production facilities. It would also be very useful
to have smolt-to-adult survival data for each hatchery, he said, and to
identify and implement spawner abundance goals identified for all hatchery
and wild populations, by subbasin.
IV. Update on the Framework Process.
Chip McConnaha of the Power Planning Council staff provided an overview
of the Framework process, and its interconnections with the Artificial
Production Review and subbasin planning. He described the background
and structure of the Framework effort, explaining that numerous entities
in the region had been invited to submit their own particular “vision
statements” for the future of the Columbia River system; the 28 vision
statements submitted were subsequently distilled down to seven analyzable
alternatives, intended to express the full range of alternative visions
for the future of the system. In addition, a series of ecological
objectives and strategies, intended to describe how each vision might be
achieved, have been identified for each of the alternatives. The use
of hatcheries, for example, is a strategy, McConnaha explained.
Another aspect of the Framework effort is its geographic structure,
McConnaha continued. We started out at the basin level, then
designated a set of what are being referred to as “ecological provinces,”
of which there are currently seven or eight. Once the Pacific
Northwest decides what its vision is for the future of the Columbia River
Basin, that imposes some constraints about what we do in each of these
provinces, McConnaha said. Those constraints, in turn, impose
specific constraints on what we can do in each of the subbasins included
in each province, McConnaha said.
Essentially, the Framework is intended as an organized way to structure
something like the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Program, McConnaha
explained – it’s not rocket science, it’s just an organizational
tool. The only thing that is somewhat unique about it is the idea
that what you do at the basin level constrains what you can do at the
provincial and subbasin levels. That integration between geographic
levels is probably the key to the entire process, he said; it’s
something we’ve never before tried to implement in an explicit way.
The idea behind the ecological provinces is to group a set of subbasins
which have a common set of ecological characteristics, McConnaha
continued. The largest province is the Columbia Basin Plateau, which
is largely defined by the area of the Columbia Basin basalt in eastern
Oregon and Washington; it includes the Yakima, Umatilla, John Day,
Deschutes and Crab Creek Basins, as well as the Snake River Basin up to
Lewiston. McConnaha noted that there is a map, available on the
Framework website, showing where the Framework provinces are
located. McConnaha added that the Framework’s geographic scope
also includes the northeastern Pacific Ocean.
With respect to the seven Framework alternatives, McConnaha said they
range from Alternative 1, the most natural ecosystem alternative, to
Alternative 7, which would base all future decisions based on cost
effectiveness and cost-benefit ratios. The alternatives in between
those two are intended to represent the various visions put forward by the
tribes, the utility industry and the federal agencies, he said.
The alternatives are being analyzed using the EDT method, a
habitat-based analytical tool which assumes that the biological
characteristics of populations reflect the template of the underlying
habitat, McConnaha explained. The Framework participants have spent
a great deal of time trying to describe what that underlying habitat
template is; I can tell you that it includes hatcheries, he said.
In terms of timeline, said McConnaha, by September 30, we hope to
complete what we’re calling our “coarse screen” analysis – a
first-cut EDT analysis of the seven alternatives. At about the same
time, the federal “matrix” Four-H analysis is supposed to be complete,
McConnaha said. In response to a question, McConnaha said the “coarse
screen” analysis will roll up fine-scale, subbasin-level analysis into a
provincial-level analysis.
Our hope is that eventually, the coarse-screen analysis will yield a
reduced set of alternatives – perhaps three – for further analysis,
McConnaha said. At approximately the same time, he said, the Council
will begin its Fish and Wildlife Amendment process. What we’re
thinking right now, in terms of that Amendment process, is that the
Council will adopt the Framework, said McConnaha, which will include the
definition of a basinwide goal, better definition of the provinces,
sideboards and objectives for each of the subbasins. We plan to
start talking to the region about that around the first of October,
McConnaha said.
In response to a question from Stearns, McConnaha said that, at this
point, exactly how the seven alternatives currently being analyzed will be
reduced to three is unclear. Once the Council’s Amendment process
is complete, some time around January 1, 2000, we will announce which of
the three alternatives is preferred, he said. Adoption is
tentatively scheduled for June, 2000, he added.
In terms of coordination with the APR process and subbasin planning,
McConnaha continued, in the first round of program review, we aren’t
going to be adopting subbasin plans. We might adopt the
provincial-level recommendations, then leave it up to localized efforts to
develop the subbasin plans themselves. My hope is that we will be
able to describe what a subbasin plan is, what it needs to include and how
it needs to be developed, if it is to be adopted by the Council, he said.
If we’re going to have a new format for subbasin plans, said Dompier,
shouldn’t we just stop the subbasin planning that is currently ongoing
in the region until that new format is available? I share that
concern, said McConnaha; you’re right, in that we need some convergence
here. It seems reasonable to do that around the Council’s
Amendment process, he said, but that is a valid concern. It could be
that what you really need to do is not to invent an entirely new way to
develop subbasin plans, but to develop a way to integrate the subbasin
plans that are now ongoing into the Framework and Amendment processes,
noted Dompier.
Is it fair to say that anyone who is doing subbasin planning now is
running the risk of developing a plan that won’t fit within the
guidelines developed through your process? Smith asked. I would
think that would be a concern, yes, McConnaha replied. Obviously
you, as managers, need a subbasin plan to guide your day-to-day
operations; our hope is that we can use the plans you’re developing, the
plans that were developed in the late 1980s and everything else that has
come before and since, and adapt them into a subbasin plan that will fit
within this structure, McConnaha said.
Lohn asked whether, in McConnaha’s opinion, the EDT database will be
accessible-enough, manipulatable-enough and updatable-enough to function
as the basinwide-to-subbasin database the APR process has been
discussing. In other words, he said, do we need two separate
database efforts, or will the EDT database be sufficient to address the
region’s information needs? The EDT database probably doesn’t
have all of the historical hatchery information you would need, McConnaha
replied. It will provide very detailed habitat information, he said,
but it may not include catch record information, for example. The
intent is to layer the EDT database over the GIS map, he said; there might
also be another layer which includes the kinds of historical hatchery
information you need in the APR process. The region may no longer
need a single, all-inclusive database, McConnaha said – what we do need,
however, is a common way to move between databases, and a common way to
manage queries.
In terms of the changes you envision to the subbasin planning process,
said Dompier, are you talking about a new template that everyone will need
to fill out again to submit proposals for funding? I wasn’t
speaking of that template, so much as a new set of criteria against which
projects will be judged by CBFWA, the ISRP and the Council during the
final prioritization process, McConnaha replied.
Evans suggested that further discussion of the Framework process and
its application to the specific needs of the APR process take place in the
afternoon meeting of the Implementation work group. He added that,
at the last meeting of this group, the need for a checklist for subbasin
planning was discussed; given the fact that there a number of ongoing
initiatives in which subbasin planning will play a role, he said, the need
for that checklist is probably more urgent.
Wrapping Up
The PRC meeting adjourned, and the work group on process and
coordination (implementation) convened in the afternoon.
Adjourn
Production Review Committee
July 12, 1999 Meeting Attendees
Brian Allee, Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority
Bill Bakke, Native Fish Society
Don Campton, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Doug Dompier, Columbia Basin Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
Dan Evans, Gordon Thomas Honeywell (Facilitation Team)
Bob Foster, Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife
Mark Fritsch, Northwest Power Planning Council Staff
Jeff Gislason, Bonneville Power Administration
Liz Hamilton, NSIA
Bob Lohn, Northwest Power Planning Council staff
John Marsh, Contractor to Northwest Power Planning Council
Jim Myron, Oregon Trout
John Ogan, Northwest Power Planning Council Staff
Cameron Oster, Northwest Power Planning Council Staff
Tom Rogers, Idaho Dept. of Fish and Game
Stephen Smith, National Marine Fisheries Service
Tim Stearns, Save Our Wild Salmon
Rick Williams, Independent Scientific Review Board
David Wills, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Frank Young, Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority
^ top
|
|
home