This contract is to fund Colville tribal member education and employment opportunities for salmon culturist positions and Biology or Fish and Wildlife related degrees. The majority of these interne will be attending the two year fish culture program at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham OR with employment at the Chief Joseph Hatchery upon completion.  This contract specifically covers:



Funding from October 1, 2010 - through - September 30, 2011 .  

--Funding under this contract covers 6 students attending Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham OR and two students attending a 4 year degree program

The Colville Tribes will be providing cost share through funding of books and tuition.

Background:

In order to ensure the long-term success and viability of the Colville tribes ongoing fish and wildlife recovery efforts, the Colville Tribes Fish and Wildlife Department has established a goal of cultivating a new generation of enrolled Colville tribal-member professionals.  In order to do this, the Department established a successful Chief Joseph Hatchery Fish Culturist education training project in collaboration with BPA and Mt. Hood Community College.  The Colville Tribes  propose expanding this project to include an opportunity for two additional students (existing F&W employees)  to go to college to earn Bachelor's degrees in fisheries biology and management and return to work as professional biologist for the Department.  The funding support these two students would be in addition to BPA's ongoing funding for the six students currently enrolled in Mt. Hood Community College Fish Culture program.

The Chief Joseph Hatchery Program will directly benefit from this proposed addition because when the selected students return to work for the Department as professional biologist they will be assigned to work with the Chief Joseph Hatchery and related programs.  Additionally, these students will return to work with the Department in the summers in between school years, and will be exposed to Hatchery operations and related efforts.  

The long-term vision of the tribe is to undertake similar efforts in other areas of Fish and Wildlife management so as to develop and employ the maximum number of Colville Tribal members in the Fish and Wildlife area as a key component of administering the accords mitigation funding available to the Tribe.

CCT and  BPA agree to will work with this amount and type of funding (e.g., health benefits for students) through September 30, 2011 while BPA develops it guidelines for funding education.