Review guidance

Background and Introduction

The Council makes recommendations to Bonneville for funding projects aimed at protecting, mitigating and enhancing fish and wildlife affected by the Columbia River basin hydroelectric system. The Council will be making fish and wildlife project funding recommendations for Fiscal Years 2007 through 2009 in the fall of calendar year 2006. Building on the local input that was captured in the subbasin plans adopted over the last year, the Council now seeks the input and advice from local groups throughout the Columbia basin on what proposals are of highest priority to begin implementing each subbasin plan over this three-year period. That is, the Council would like local groups throughout the basin to review the fish and wildlife proposals that have been submitted against the adopted subbasin plans they relate to, and provide the Council a proposed three-year suite of projects that represent the highest priorities of the subbasin plan for the next three years.

This document’s purpose is to describe for both local groups developing recommendations and the public-at-large, the Council’s expectations and needs in the local prioritization process. Questions not answered here should be directed to the key contact people identified below.

The Council’s Use of Locally Developed Priorities

The Council will consider the advice of the local groups as it makes its funding recommendations to Bonneville.

The Council’s aim is to develop its funding recommendations to Bonneville to give as full effect as possible to the recommendations of local groups. But it must be understood that the recommendations for project funding offered by local groups is advisory. The Council has a legal obligation to make recommendations to Bonneville, and that responsibility cannot be delegated. In addition to the advice of the local groups, the Council must take into account public comment, the reports of the Independent Scientific Review Panel, cost-effectiveness, consistency with the overall adopted Fish and Wildlife Program, and other issues. So, while the Council will endeavor to support the locally developed priorities as it takes many things into account in making its funding recommendations to Bonneville, it cannot commit to simply adopting those priorities as its own recommendations.

What if local groups cannot develop agreed upon priorities that all participants support?

The Council stands ready to assist local groups in reaching agreed upon priorities. However, if even after best efforts are made there is lack of agreement on the priority projects, the Council will accept an alternative prioritization proposal from any participant. If there are competing prioritization recommendations, the Council will resolve those differences in making its funding recommendations to Bonneville.

Local Project Prioritization Deliverables

What the Council needs to receive from local groups

The Council will organize the project proposals by subbasin following the January 10^th proposal submissions deadline. Where local groups have been organized by subbasin, all proposals received for the subbasin will be provided; where local groups have organized at a province or multi-subbasin level proposals for the province or set of subbasins will be provided.

The local groups operating at a subbasin scale should review the proposals against the subbasin plan adopted by the Council. Each proposal completed should have detailed information describing how it is consistent with the goals, objectives, and strategies of the subbasin plan, and further, why it is a priority under the plan. Using this information in the proposal, and with close consideration of the adopted subbasin plan, the local groups should prioritize the proposals. Some groups will organize initially at a larger province-scale, and will be working with a set of subbasin plans and a larger group of proposals. The Council will provide a prioritization worksheet for the local groups to record their priority project recommendations. The project title, sponsor, and three-year proposed budget for each proposal should be recorded.

Deadlines for receipt of the local groups’ recommendations

The Council needs recommended province priorities and budgets no later than June 16^th. The Council is aware thatsome local groups will organize at the subbasin scale, develop priorities for the subbasin, and then go through a second step of prioritization to aggregate subbasin priorities into a larger province package.

If you are a group organizing at a subbasin scale (rather than province) you need to consult the designated Council state staff contact (identified below) to fix a deadline for your subbasin level products that allows time for the second step of developing the province recommendations.

Is a list of priority projects enough?

The minimum needed in the local process is a list of projects and associated budgets that the local prioritization group believes is the highest priority work under the subbasin plan. However, the local group’s advice to the Council would be greatly enhanced by a concise statement that explains how it conducted the prioritization, and why the list provided does in fact represent the highest priority projects.

Funding targets are for provinces rather than subbasins.

The Council established province level funding targets, not subbasin budgets. This means that local groups prioritizing at the subbasin level will not have a firm budget to work to, and will simply need to organize the proposals based on priority relative to the subbasin plan. Consult the appropriate Council state staff contact person noted below for any additional direction.

Local prioritization that is done at a subbasin level (or any other scale that does not conform to the Council province structure), will require a reconciliation step where the subbasin proposal priorities are aggregated up to a recommended province work plan within the Council approved province budget level. Council members are working together to identify those areas where this subbasin aggregation will need to be conducted. That this aggregation step will be done demonstrates why it may be very helpful for each subbasin to provide an explanation of its prioritization process and the rationale for its project list--that subbasin information would be considered when the province scale reconciliation is done.

Proposals relating to work in more than one subbasin or province will evaluated by the Council with assistance from others, not local groups.

The Council expects that there will be proposals developed that do not relate to any specific subbasin plan, but rather, have basinwide or multi-province application. These will be identified shortly after the proposal development deadline of January 10^th, and the Council, with the assistance of Bonneville, fish and wildlife managers, and likely others, will evaluate and prioritize the proposals against the 2000 Program, 2003 Mainstem Amendments, any applicable subbasin plan (for those subbasin plans that address a portion of the mainstem Columbia or Snake River) and possibly other ESA-based guidance that Bonneville or others makes available. The Council established planning budgets for these sorts of proposals.

The adopted subbasin plans establish the standards or “criteria” that the local groups need to use to prioritize the proposals?

The Council is asking local groups to evaluate the proposals against the priorities set forth in the adopted subbasin plans. There are not additional or supplemental criteria that the Council is requiring local groups to consider. However, because it is possible, in fact likely, that many proposals will be consistent with a subbasin plan, and beyond that, also appear to propose activities that seem to be a priority under the plan, local groups can choose to develop additional standards for guidelines to help them prioritize competing proposals. For example, local groups may decide that proposals that benefit multiple species are favored; proposals that bring in substantial partnerships or cost-sharing may be favored; proposals that maintain an existing stream of fish and/or wildlife benefits may be favored, and so forth. These are only examples. Again, local groups should focus their prioritization efforts on the subbasin plans, but as they encounter multiple proposals that may be a priority under the plan they can take into account factors they deem important in developing prioritized project recommendations lists.

That being said, it must be noted that the Council can only recommend that Bonneville fund fish and wildlife proposals that it has legal authority to fund. By law, Bonneville cannot fund activities that other entities have a clear legal duty to fund, and Bonneville cannot assume paying for fish and wildlife activities that are currently being paid for by another with a legal responsibility to do so. While the local groups should be mindful of this limitation as they do their work, they are not asked to shoulder the primary responsibility of making these determinations. Rather, it will be the responsibility of the Council and Bonneville to review the prioritized proposal lists recommended by local groups to make sure each recommended project is within Bonneville’s funding authority.

The Independent Scientific Review Panel’s reports

Most of the work done by local groups will not require dealing with the ISRP reports. The ISRP will be reviewing the proposals for scientific merit at the same time local groups are evaluating proposals against subbasin plan priorities. There is a possibility that the ISRP may complete its work early, in time for local groups to take a quick look and possible adjust their province-level prioritization based on the ISRP preliminary report. However, the Council wants to emphasize the point that the role of the local groups is to focus on issues related to subbasin plan implementation priority and the case for that made on the face of the proposals without influence by the ISRP reports.

What if proposals prioritized by local groups receive critical ISRP comments?

If a proposal is on a prioritized province list developed by the local group(s), and it receives critical or unfavorable ISRP review, there is the opportunity for the proposal sponsor to respond to the critique in a “fix-it-loop.”  Proposals that have been put on the locally developed priority lists will have the opportunity to respond and receive a second ISRP review.

Contacts: