This is a DRAFT of the fourth version of the Council staff's FY1999 issue memorandum, a periodically updated document that describes and discusses issues identified from the ISRP report and the CBFWA draft workplan that the Council will have to address in making its FY1999 funding recommendations in mid-September. The changes in this version of the memorandum reflect the results of public comment, further staff discussions and, especially, the discussion at the Council's Fish and Wildlife Committee meeting on August 25 in Boise. I will send both a "redlined" version of this draft and a "clean" version. On the redlined version, the changes shown reflect changes from the August 13 version, the third official version of this memorandum.
This version of the memorandum contains staff recommendations for resolving the issues. This memorandum will be the basis for a further discussion with the Fish and Wildlife Committee in Spokane on August 31, at which time the Committee hopes to agree to a set of recommendations to carry to the full Council. (We will use the "clean" version of this draft during the discussion.) We will then update the Council on the issues and the Committee's recommendations during the Council's work session on September 1. Following that meeting I will make whatever changes need to be made to this memo and spread it to the general public, transforming the "staff" recommendations into "Committee" recommendations wherever appropriate. The Council will then deliberate and make its funding recommendations at the Council's September meeting in Montana.
Two new issues have shown up in this version of the memorandum -- one involving the on-going lamprey project and one involving the costs of drawdown mitigation at Libby and Hungry Horse. We will contact the affected interests directly about these issues. A couple of other issues, while not new, have been more clearly distinguished by separate headings