Related links: SAIC recommendations report (60k PDF)

May 16, 2003

The Council and NOAA Fisheries are seeking public comments on a proposal for an Internet-based, cooperative system for fish and wildlife information management that would be accessible to everyone from fish and wildlife managers to the general public.

The effort to improve fish and wildlife information management is being directed by the Council and NOAA Fisheries, with technical support from Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). After analyzing the disparate state of fish and wildlife information management in the Columbia River Basin for the last year, SAIC recently offered detailed recommendations for steps to develop a Columbia Basin Cooperative Information System. The recommendations are posted for review here (60k PDF) and NOAA Fisheries' Northwest Fisheries Science Center.

Currently many types of information are collected by multiple agencies. In its interviews with information users, SAIC found strong interest in improving management and availability and integration of all information pertaining to hydrologic information, data about the abundance of fish and wildlife, regulations, water quality, fish hatcheries, land uses, fish passage at dams and scientific research. Much of this information cannot be easily shared among agencies and the public because it is collected with different standards, compiled in different formats and stored in different places.

Last year, through a public, collaborative process involving state, federal and tribal fish and wildlife scientists, managers and policymakers, and interested members of the public, the Council, NOAA Fisheries and SAIC evaluated information management approaches and identified needs.

The SAIC recommendations address the need for high quality, reliable and verifiable information to be available to a broad range of users, including fish and wildlife program managers, researchers, scientists and the general public. A goal is to make all of the relevant data accessible through single Internet queries. Following public review of the SAIC recommendations over the next four to six months, the team of fish and wildlife management and regulatory agencies that collaborated in the SAIC analysis will make its final recommendations to the Council and NOAA Fisheries. If the decision is to go ahead with development, the Council and NOAA Fisheries would negotiate an agreement with other participants to develop a final design and approach and also identify the types of information that would be shared and formats. The information system would be collaboratively funded and managed.

The Council is an agency of the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington and is directed by the Northwest Power Act of 1980 to prepare a program to protect, mitigate and enhance fish and wildlife of the Columbia River Basin affected by hydropower dams while also assuring the region an adequate, efficient, economical and reliable power supply.