March 2001 issue

 NWCouncil.org NeWs    March 2001 index

Subbasin planning update

Each year, the Northwest Power Planning Council reviews proposals for on-the-ground projects and research to implement its Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program. Proposals meeting the highest standards are then recommended to the Bonneville Power Administration for funding. Currently, Bonneville spends about $127 million annually on fish and wildlife projects in the basin. The Council's 2000 Fish and Wildlife Program outlines a new review and selection process that focuses recovery efforts on local subbasin planning.

Last October, Lynn Palensky joined the Council staff to coordinate the process to develop subbasin plans. The plans will identify the goals for fish, wildlife, and habitat in each subbasin, define objectives that measure progress toward those goals and establish strategies to meet those objectives. Most importantly for the Council and project sponsors, the plans will eventually be adopted into the Council's fish and wildlife program, and will then be used to guide project funding.

Prior to coming to the Council, Palensky worked for the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife as a fish habitat biologist for the Salmon Recovery Funding Board, and later for the Interagency Committee for Outdoor Recreation, where she was the Riparian Habitat Grant Program Coordinator.

Since coming to the Council, Palensky has been traveling throughout the four states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana to inform people of the new process, listen to their thoughts on how it can work, and to encourage their participation.

"So far, we've talked to stakeholders in each of the four states and many of the tribes to get a feel for what their needs and expectations are for subbasin planning, and what the best approach will be in each state," she said.

"People are generally receptive to subbasin planning, but there is always some skepticism out there about funding to get the plans done, getting local participation, cooperation, and eventually, consensus."

Nonetheless, she said, there is generally strong support for the concept. The fact that the program is science-based, stresses accountability, and is more manageable due to its narrower focus makes sense to people. And because the process is connected directly to the Council's funding recommendations to Bonneville, they recognize that this makes it different from past efforts at watershed planning. "People want to know that the plan will be a 'living document,'" says Palensky, "And not just another plan that will sit on a shelf gathering dust."

The Council and the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority, an association of the region's fish and wildlife agencies and Indian tribes, are working to gather existing information about fish, wildlife and habitat in tributary subbasins of the Columbia. This is no small task, as there are more than 50 subbasins. As the summaries are completed, they will be used to guide the Council's project-funding decisions until formal subbasin plans are developed and added to the fish and wildlife program through amendment processes. So far, summaries are completed for the Columbia Gorge, Intermountain and Columbia Plateau provinces. The provinces -- there are 11 in the Columbia River Basin -- are groups of adjacent, ecologically similar subbasins. In February, the Council made project-funding decisions for the Columbia Gorge and Intermountain provinces, based on the needs identified in the subbasin summaries

The summaries and project reviews with the Independent Scientific Review Panel have been completed for the Mountain Columbia Province, and coming up next, the Columbia Plateau Province will begin its project solicitation in March. To access the subbasin summaries, ISRP reports, province review schedule, and other information about the subbasin planning process, go to the Province Review pages at the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority website.

Palensky thinks that the process has been going well.

"The summaries are turning out to be much more comprehensive than what we expected. Although they begin to move away from what we had envisioned as a 'summary,' it's been encouraging to see that local stakeholders can come together so quickly in preparation for the planning exercise. It tells us a lot about what is going on in a subbasin, and we expect to have even broader participation as we go along."

The ISRP reviews have been very helpful, along with the subbasin summary information. The process has been successful so far in helping to identify what projects will be most effective and to determine that:

• The project is timely
• It is in the right location
• It achieves its desired objectives that have been identified in the watershed

And, as with all evolving things, "The farther we get down the road in this process, the better we'll get at it," says Palensky.

Her approach to the undertaking is both philosophical and pragmatic, "Subbasin planning is going to occur differently in all four states, and likely in each subbasin, depending on the existing infrastructure there and participation. We can't take a cookie-cutter approach to get the plans done; we have to be flexible to set people up for success and not failure."