Statement of Work and Budget FY2008

BPA Project Number:  2003-036-00
BPA Project Title: Collaborative Systemwide Monitoring and Evaluation Project
Contract Number:  CR-78373
Contract Title:  PI 200303600 PL CBFWA MONITOR/EVAL PROGRAM                      
Performance/Budget Period: October 1, 2007 - September 30, 2008

Work Plan for FY 2008
CBFWA Collaborative, Systemwide Monitoring and Evaluation Project (CSMEP)
Project No. 2003-036-00

This project is a collaborative effort, led by the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority (CBFWA). It is co-sponsored by BPA, the NOAA Fisheries (abbreviated here as NOAAF, previously called National Marine Fisheries Service or NMFS), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), four state fish agencies (WDFW, ODFW, IDFG, MFWP), the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) and other Columbia Basin tribes. It also involves several other Columbia Basin entities, such as the Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NPCC). The project began in October 2003 through BPA funding of the Mainstem Systemwide set of projects, and was originally designed to continue for 3 years, until the end of September 2006. The project has now been extended to the end of September 2008.

The project focuses on the issue of systemwide monitoring and evaluation of fish status, addressing requirements of NOAAF and USFWS Biological Opinions and Recovery Plans as well as the NPCC Fish and Wildlife Program. It proposes an integrated, collaborative effort by fisheries scientists and biometricians to fulfill seven objectives:

1. Interact with federal, state and tribal programmatic and technical entities responsible for monitoring and evaluation of fish and wildlife, to ensure that quarterly work plans developed and executed under this project are well integrated with ongoing work by these entities. (Interaction between CSMEP, the Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring Programs (PNAMP), and the NOAA/AA Pilot Projects is particularly important to this task.)

2. Collaboratively inventory existing monitoring data that bear on the problem of evaluating the status and trend of salmon, steelhead, bull trout and other species of regional importance across the U.S. portion of the Columbia Basin, and for selected parts of the Columbia Basin in Canada which affect the status of key fish stocks in the U.S. Columbia Basin (e.g. Okanagan sockeye).

3. Work with existing entities (e.g. StreamNet, NOAA Fisheries, NPCC) to make a subset of existing monitoring data available through the Internet, recognizing the continuing evolution of data management in the Columbia Basin.

4. Critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of existing monitoring data and associated evaluation methods for answering key questions at various spatial scales concerning the state of ecosystems and fish habitat, as well as fish distributions, stock status and responses to management actions.

5. Collaboratively design  improved monitoring and evaluation methods that will fill information gaps and provide better answers to these questions in the future, by providing state and tribal fish agency participation and work products for multi-agency development of regionally co-ordinated monitoring programs. (CSMEP conducted 3 interagency design workshops in FY04, 2 in FY05, 3 in FY06, 2 in FY07 and intends additional workshops to wrap up technical products in FY08.)

6. Coordinate state and tribal participation and work products for regionally co-ordinated, multi-agency implementation of projects or large scale monitoring programs.

7. Participate in regional forums to evaluate new monitoring program results, assess new ability to answer key questions, propose revisions to monitoring approaches, and coordinate proposed changes with regional monitoring programs.

CSMEP was developed through an iterative process from April 2002 to August 2003, and its evolution is described in several documents:

1. the original proposal submitted to the ISRP, and associated presentation;
2. the positive initial ISRP review of CSMEP, (Aug. 2 2002), which recommended integrating various other projects with CSMEP;
3. the follow-up response by CBFWA to ISRP comments;
4. the very positive final ISRP review of CSMEP (Nov. 5, 2002);
5. a draft Work Plan for 2003, distributed on Dec. 5, 2002; and
6. a ‘Skeleton Work Plan', developed through discussions with BPA, NOAAF, USFWS, CBFWA, ODFW, IDFG, NPCC and Tribes during March and April of 2003.
7. Final work plan for FY 2004 (August 2003).

The evolution of CSMEP has continued. Each quarterly work plan for each year of CSMEP has been developed in consultation with other technical and programmatic entities to ensure there is no duplication of effort in work tasks and products. Progress during FY 2005, FY2006 and FY2007 has been summarised in the quarterly progress reports and annual reports. These and other CSMEP work products can be found on the CSMEP web site (http://www.cbfwa.org/committees/csmep/).  

The focus of this Work Plan is on the technical tasks proposed under CSMEP for FY08 and the co-ordination with programmatic entities required for those technical tasks to be accomplished. The project also includes the required interactions of technical personnel with programmatic entities to resolve issues.

CSMEP will maintain the practice of ensuring that CBFWA Technical Work Groups under this contract will have clear definition of the existing or new entities that should be consulted for technical and / or programmatic co-ordination.

CSMEP is intended to provide technical products supporting the advancement of collaborative, integrative M&E activities across the Basin, in response to both the NOAAF and USFWS Biological Opinions, as well as the NPCC Fish and Wildlife Program. It is also intended that CSMEP work products do not duplicate efforts by existing entities. This requires close co-ordination with many programmatic entities in the development of annual and quarterly work plans, and adaptation to the constantly evolving M&E activities of other entities. These programmatic entities include:

• Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring Partnership (PNAMP) provides a forum for coordinating monitoring activities and developing common monitoring approaches. The entities forming PNAMP originally had a focus on monitoring watershed condition, but have since grown to include modules for effectiveness monitoring, fish population monitoring, and data coordination. CSMEP brings to PNAMP strong representation from Columbia Basin state and tribal fish and wildlife agencies, which complements the other PNAMP participating entities (i.e. WA State Salmon Recovery Funding Board, BPA, OWEB, ID Office of Species Conservation, CA NW Forest Plan Monitoring Program, BoR, EPA, Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund, USFS, BLM, Federal Caucus RME Program).
• NPCC Fish and Wildlife Program representatives focused on M & E, sub-basin planning and data management (e.g. North-west Environmental Data Network).
• RME Workgroups responsible for M & E and data management in the 2000 NMFS Biological Opinion on the FCRPS1,  and the Federal Caucus' Basinwide Recovery Strategy. (1This includes RPAs 180, 183, 185-190, 191-193, 195, and 198)
• NOAAF Recovery Planning Technical Recovery Teams involved with recommending M & E for both status and action effectiveness.
• USFWS RMEG (Recovery, Monitoring and Evaluation Group), which is developing M & E strategies to respond to the USFWS Biological Opinion on bull trout, and bull trout recovery plans.2 (2ESSA is also facilitating the USFWS RMEG and Paul Wilson of USFWS is participating in CSMEP)
• Sub-basin planning efforts, particularly as related to M & E efforts.
• Stock assessment work by groups concerned with harvest (e.g. U.S. v. Oregon TAC).
• Groups conducting effectiveness assessments of the effects of habitat restoration actions on survival (e.g. EDT modeling efforts, NOAA-Fisheries).
• Tribal groups actively involved with M&E processes, including CRITFC member tribes (Nez Perce, Warm Springs, Umatilla, Yakama) and the UCUT (Upper Columbia United Tribes) such as the Colville Confederated Tribes.