Oregon Subbasin Plan Implementation Team (OSPIT) Review of 2007-2009 Province Budgets

June 16 update   |   , 503-229-5171
 

These are the OSPIT Final Recommendations.

Blue Mountain (70k Excel), Estuary (600k Excel), Gorge (290k Excel), Plateau (850k Excel)

These recommendations include comments received through June 15. There was a small reduction in the Umatilla budget and there is a bit more work to get the Estuary down to the budget level. Headers were added to distinguish subbasin prioritization from the OSPIT prioritization. And the Gorge recommendations are now a separate file (removed from Estuary spreadsheet).

Next steps

Some project sponsors will need to generate responses to the ISRP for Response Requested Recommendations by July 14. The Council recommends only that projects that have a likelihood of funding (i.e. those prioritized by the state process) generate a response to the ISRP if one has been requested. So, if you appear on the OSPIT list and have a "Response requested" from ISRP, you must generate that response to satisfy the Panel. Please direct any questions you have on the ISRP Fix-it loop to Karl Weist or to the Council staff.

The Council will make a recommendation on funding at the September meeting in Astoria (for the Fish and Wildlife Committee) and a final recommendation at the October meeting in Helena. You may continue to direct comments and questions to me or the Oregon Council members.

Background: Who comprises OSPIT and how does it make decisions?

OSPIT is comprised of the governmental agencies with management authority over fish and wildlife in the Oregon portions of the provinces (CBFWA members) that OSPIT will review, augmented by some other non-manager agencies. That means OSPIT has voting membership from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla, the Nez Perce Tribe, National Marine Fisheries Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service and, in the case of the Estuary and Lower Columbia, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

For the non-managers, I encourage the state to augment the OSPIT by including OWEB, DEQ and Water Resources should they choose to attend. The State would still have only one vote (through ODFW) and I would leave it to the agencies to determine how they get to a unified State position. I also encourage the Action Agencies, BPA, COE and BOR to attend and to participate in the OSPIT discussions. The Action Agencies participate as non-voting members, but we are certainly open to their input. Also, I am asking at least one member of each subbasin prioritization team to attend the meetings so that they may provide us insight into how they ranked projects and provide a flavor of the discussions at each subbasin meeting. If all this seems vaguely familiar, think back to the days of the Oregon Level 2 Subbasin Planning Team and you get the idea.

OSPIT’s task will involve developing the Oregon recommendation for a preliminary provincial budget for the Oregon portion of the province. Oregon’s Council members will use the OSPIT recommendations as the basis for their deliberations when crafting a budget for the Council. OSPIT should strive to come to consensus on the recommendation they provide to the Council. Since OSPIT will be using the subbasin priorities as the basis for developing its recommendations, substitutions against those subbasin priorities will require the concurrence of all OSPIT voting members. I should note, however, that since we are generally not prioritizing to a budget in the subbasins to make a provincial budget OSPIT might have to eliminate some priority projects, or at least attempt to find ways to reduce the scope of some projects to make budget. OSPIT should also look for ways to leverage non-BPA funds in developing its provincial budgets, if possible.