A sound scientific proposal should respond to the six questions and related material at the beginning of the regional coordination section.

The proposal describes a project that funds meeting attendance for the purpose of information dissemination, issues tracking, and internal coordination. The descriptions are quite general and lack specific examples of what outcomes are desired, how they are being achieved, and how they know they are being achieved. Many of the earlier ISRP review comments continue to apply.

1. Purpose: Significance to Regional Programs, Technical Background, and Objectives

This proposal is to fund engagement of the Spokane Tribe of Indians (STOI) representatives in regional science and policy discussions, both to provide input to these fora on STOI positions and to keep STOI leadership informed of regional issues. The major issues for the STOI relate to the large areas of fish habitat blocked by the dams. These issues include management responsibilities for blocked areas as well as impacts from regional actions.

Significance to regional programs: The Spokane Tribe of Indians has chosen to represent its interests and engage in technical and policy issues with resource managers in the Upper Columbia Basin. The STOI wants to communicate its interests to “the Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NPCC), the Bonneville Power Administration, the Bureau of Reclamation and other entities that create issues that impact Lake Roosevelt and STOI F&W programs.” The STOI cooperates with “the Upper Columbia United Tribes (UCUT), Upper Snake River Tribes (USRT), the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission Tribes (CRITFC) tribes and the Salish and Kootenai tribes of Montana (Flathead).”

Problem statement: The proposal presents the problem previously facing the STOI as a lack of timely information that created difficulty in effectively participating in discussions and diminished their ability to manage fish and wildlife resources. This problem was resolved by the relocation of coordination activities within the Tribe. The proposal states that STOI coordination assists in the mitigation of FCRPS impacts. The problem statement also notes that the STOI have not been given the opportunity to present new projects to support anadromous recovery, although it is not clear whether this is a problem that existed before the STOI regional coordination or one that has continued since this project was first funded in FY07.

Objectives: The two objectives of this proposal are: 1. Improve coordination and communication on Lake Roosevelt impacts; 2. Anadromous participation. Objective 1 states a desired outcome but in terms that are too general to be measurable. The coordination and communication are stated only in unidirectional terms of conveying the Tribe's perspective to the region, rather than multidirectional communication. Objective 2 specifies a process rather than an outcome.

Deliverables include attending meetings, educate the region about STOI mitigation projects, coordinate on policy and technical issues, and provide reports. Deliverables are stated in "process" terms such as attendance at meetings. The proposal should include a description of how the desired outcomes of coordination, communication, and education will be measured and evaluated. How will you assess whether education or improvements in communication have taken place?

2. History: Accomplishments, Results, and Adaptive Management (ISRP Review of Results)

The STOI left CBFWA because of inadequate and poorly timed communication about issues in the Upper Columbia region. The project financial history goes back to 2007, although no expenditures were made until 2008, when four Columbia Basin tribes left CBFWA. The tribes preferred their own expertise and to communicate directly in coordination processes and issues.

Financial performance: The explanation of the project's financial performance is adequate.

Deliverable performance: All scheduled reports have been completed.

Accomplishments: Accomplishments could be better summarized and described. Instead of a list of types of meetings attended (these are inputs), some enumeration of the number and type, and a discussion of the benefits to STOI of meeting attendance, would better meet the requirement to present accomplishments (outputs). What was accomplished by attending these meetings? How did it contribute to coordination, communication or education? What is the evidence of better communication or education?

Adaptive Management: No information is provided of explicit attempts to evaluate past interactions, modify current practice, and assess the success of the modification.

ISRP Retrospective Evaluation of Results

Improvements are needed:

• Accomplishments are listed as inputs rather than summarized as outputs.
• The proposal should include a description of how the desired outcomes of coordination, communication, and education will be measured and evaluated.
• No specific examples of asserted improvements in coordination are provided.
• Many of the earlier ISRP review comments continue to apply.

3. Project Relationships, Emerging Limiting Factors, and Tailored Questions for Type of Work (hatchery, RME, tagging)

The geographic interests are regional to the Upper Columbia, national to the responsibilities of the United States toward American Indians, and international, especially regarding Columbia River Treaty negotiations between the United States and Canada. Further, there are significant issues in downstream pressures being placed on Lake Roosevelt that need coordination attention.

Project relationships: There is some mention of projects with similar structure and a general statement that the structural similarities allow coordination, but specifics as to how these projects are related are not provided.

Emerging limiting factors: The need for predator control is mentioned; the nature of the predator problem should be described.

The concepts and principles for STOI mitigation for Lake Roosevelt loses would be desirable to specify. The critical issues at Lake Roosevelt are that downstream users look to “Lake Roosevelt to be the answer for all Columbia system wide problems. Irrigators, Anadromous flows, Barge operators, Flood Control, Hydro Operation balance, Rehydration projects and others seek answers from the waters that lie on the lands of the STOI.” This seems like a very important coordination issue. Are these being addressed? Who are the key groups that have to be informed and what kinds of decisions are expected from these groups. The impacts to resident fish populations, cultural sites, and wildlife are variables that can be monitored and trends shown. Has coordination changed any of these trends? What has been the level of “savings to the above mentioned parties?” How have the saving been distributed? (see Qualifications)

What are the coordination issues in the negotiations regarding the Columbia River Treaty? What are the implications for the Fish and Wildlife Program, especially projects in the Upper Columbia.

More development of the education objective would be desirable. The primary audience appears to be local schools and universities. What are the key messages to be emphasized? What education styles or media will be used? How will effectiveness of understanding the message be monitored? Can this be placed in an adaptive management framework, where on project renewal, lessons learned could inform the next round of funding? The information in the annual report for Contract # 48252, Project # 207-106-00, Contract Period 08/15/2010 – 08/14/2011 gives very little detail.

Meetings are identified. What have been the outcomes from these meeting? How has coordination improved over the time when coordination was handled by CBFWA? The annual report for Contract # 48252, Project # 207-106-00, Contract Period 08/15/2010 – 08/14/2011 gives very little detail on the results of attending meetings and the collaborations that took place.

This proposal identifies a number of very important issues that could be framed into one or more hypotheses that would show the value of coordination. Monitoring of these relationships would be very valuable in showing the value of coordination.

4. Deliverables, Work Elements, Metrics, and Methods

Proposed work includes monitoring and evaluation (50%), coordination of projects and information (25%), education and information (15%), data management (5%), and project proposal reviews (5%).

Monitoring and evaluation is described as 50% of the project. The project's use of meeting attendance for the purpose of monitoring regional issues is clear but the proposal does not describe how that has been done. It also shows little evidence of evaluation of these issues or of project performance. Although M&E comprise 50% of the budget, project coordination and information (25%) is listed as the primary task of this project.

The proposal states that over time coordination has improved both internally and externally, but no specific examples of this improvement are provided.

Three work elements are identified – 99. Outreach and Education, 122. Provide Technical Review, and 189. Coordination-Columbia Basinwide. Only 99 has metrics, but they are more inputs rather than outcomes. Can output metrics be identified to go with these work elements? Ideally, the hypothesis(es) developed in the proposal would be measured during the course of the coordination activities and results presented in the report on this project. There are many ideas discussed in the proposal that are amenable to this approach. Selecting a few of the most important questions, concerns, or hypotheses and monitoring them is recommended.

4a. Specific comments on protocols and methods described in MonitoringMethods.org

This project does not contain a monitoring protocol, but it and other coordination projects would benefit from taking a more systematic approach to monitoring and evaluation of their performance.

The protocols for the three work elements are published but do not provide adequate guidance on the methods and metrics. Guidance is available from ISRP (2007-14:2). Project sponsors should design the metrics into their proposal and identify methods for measurement.

Modified by Dal Marsters on 4/17/2012 2:49:12 PM.

This is an inadequately written proposal to perform coordination and meeting participation. The proposal provides little explanation of how the requested FTE support and other funds will be spent. Budget figures are rounded and seem excessive (e.g. .7 FTE for coordination; $10,000 to attend regional meetings). The proposal does not justify why the efforts described in this proposal, which would seem to be routine and to require minimal effort, are not a component of the four ongoing Spokane projects, or how conservation and management will be affected if the funding is not provided.

This proposal and a twin proposal submitted by the Kalispel Tribe would seem to be covered under the more comprehensive (and less expensive) UCUT coordination proposal, which includes the Spokane and Kalispel.

The justification for the proposal is based in the need for regional cooperation, the MOU between BPA and the Upper Columbia United Tribes regarding consultation, coordination and participation, and the withdrawal of the Spokane Tribe from CBFWA. The proposal does not provide specific explanation of the Tribe's withdrawal from CBFWA.

The proposal has a single objective of regional coordination, explained as being necessary for Spokane implementation of the Fish and Wildlife Program. Four work elements are generally explained as participation in meetings, exchanging information, providing Spokane information to regional reporting, and providing information to regional entities on Spokane policies, programs, and projects. Coordination is not specifically tied to improvements of fish and wildlife conservation and restoration on Spokane lands.