In spite of designation as a new project, this is clearly a follow-on/expansion of previous projects offering environmental education and outreach for the Libby Dam project - 199500400. There is no cost-sharing, yet such a collaborative project should be able to generate cost sharing and/or grant support in addition to BPA, leveraging BPA investments, increasing buy-in and reflecting growing value and relevance to partner organizations. Coordination functions look reasonable, but the other projects don't mention this group. There is not much science to review in this project. Benefits to species are indirect and have not been measured.

The proposed objectives are not very concrete. This is an operational or social approach rather than a technical or scientific one; however, there is substantial research documenting the long-term effectiveness of such approaches to improving natural resource management, especially in cases of mixed ownership and jurisdiction. This program seems to bring together more interests and activities in the subbasin than any other proposals from the subbasin even hinted existed. An extensive list of accomplishments supports their credibility.

Monitoring and evaluation consists of names, dates, and numbers of participants in activities. Would an overall program effectiveness evaluation be advisable? The proposal is to hire existing staff at higher FTE levels and do more of same activities. What larger goals would be possible if this were funded and how might the accomplishments resulting from this increased level of support be documented? As an outreach program, almost all they do is information transfer. Data in the scientific sense are not generated, but program ideas, successes and such might be shared at conferences or in semi-technical publications.