FY 2000 proposal 199801900

Section 1. Administrative

Project location

Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives (RPAs)

Section 2. Past accomplishments

Section 3. Relationships to other projects

Section 4. Budget for Planning and Design phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Planning and Design phase

Section 5. Budget for Construction and Implementation phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Construction and Implementation phase

Section 6. Budget for Operations and Maintenance phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Operations and Maintenance phase

Section 7. Budget for Monitoring and Evaluation phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Monitoring and Evaluation phase

Section 8. Estimated budget summary

Itemized budget

Total estimated budget

Cost sharing

Other budget explanation

Schedule Constraints: Stream restoration work that entails moving or adding materials will be contingent on successful obtainment of state, county, and federal permits. Fish monitoring work will be contingent on obtaining collection permits from state and federal agencies.

Reviews and recommendations

This information was not provided on the original proposals, but was generated during the review process.

Comment:

Comments: This was a very broad project with many different aspects. It was good to see such a comprehensive attempt to deal with a number of watershed issues. The high school monitoring program can be a good approach. However, there was not a very clear explanation of the biological justification for both previously funded and proposed projects. The objectives were stated fairly clearly, but their relative importance and level of needed funding was not argued all that effectively. There was a heavy dose of buzzwords and rhetoric, but actual substance was quite lean. It appeared that the Forest Service's watershed analysis was responsible for identifying the roads to be decommissioned and the section of stream for LWD placement, but what process was used to identify this year's projects? Were they identified by the Technical Advisory Committee, and if so, what was the process and the basis for assuming they would benefit steelhead? More details need to be provided on the make-up of and methods used by the Technical Advisory committee. What are their criteria for selecting and prioritizing projects?

Linkage to other projects was not at all clear. Progress to date, given two years of not insignificant funding, was very hard to visualize. The proposed budget is not justified. Prioritization of objectives would seem to be necessary. At several points in the proposal, the authors state the importance of full funding and the fact that only 39% and 52% of requested funding was received during the first 2 years of the project. It is unclear what is/was lost by this reduction in funding. Instead of using the appropriated monies to actually meet a reduced set of objectives under that new level of funding, the authors seem to have accomplished very little and have used the reduced funding as an excuse to explain lack of any progress. Much of the money in this budget goes for salaries and indirect costs, but the proposers do not specify what will happen (i.e., what project elements will be dropped) if the project is not fully funded.

Comment:

Comment:

Comment:

Clearly describe links between sampling/watershed analysis and restoration.

Considerable concern about whether the project will produce substantive benefit to fish and wildlife

High cost, mostly personnel. Extensive funding of federal employees.

Comment:

It would have been helpful to include, somewhere in the justification, more specific explanations of proposed actions, e.g., "we gave this activity a high priority because it would improve habitat in a reach of 'stream x' that is known to support approximately 'y %' of the adult summer steelhead spawning in the Wind River system, and this restoration project is estimated to improve survival to emergence of steelhead eggs by about 'z %'". Quantitative information of this type is usually lacking, but some justification will help us to see how the analytical process and priority ranking occurred. It was very helpful to see the Project Prioritization Checklist (A-4) and Project Proposal Form (Appendix B), but it would have been reassuring to see that projects were sited and prioritized based on best available information. The Project managers do not seem to want to deal with the prioritization question except to say they will handle it.

Since the USFS 1996 Wind River Watershed Analysis was apparently used extensively in the project selection process, it would have been useful to the ISRP to know what the main conclusions of this assessment were. If the highest priority areas were in lower Trout Creek, wouldn't this area have been off Forest Service land? If so, how was the Watershed Analysis used in them? Also, it was not fully clear from the response how the steelhead smolt data were used on the project identification process.

Progress in the future needs to be monitored closely and subsequent proposals need to document that progress and how the projects all fit together to meet watershed goals. The ISRP expects that these concerns be addressed in the Council's proposed ecological province review.

Comment:

Comment:

Sponsor comments: See comment at Council's website