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Western States Water Council Water Resources Committee Minutes Washington, D.C. March 28, 2006 . gages. Looking beyond 2007, we have had many conversations with Mark Limbaugh. He is holding our feet to the fire. He wants to go to bat for us, but he needs evidence as to why we need increases in order to keep the network working." We need to do more comparison studies to find out how much it costs to run a gaging system. The Washington Department of Ecology and Colorado State Engineer's Office have helped us understand their operations and the cost structure for the gaging they do. USGS found that the Washington's and Colorado's costs were substantially below USGS's costs for gaging. USGS then needed to look at the gaging products to determine how they differed. In the case of Colorado, their gages can be very analogous to the USGS gages, but others are only operational gages (i.e., the data are not maintained on a long-term network). Thus, the comparison is kind of "apples and oranges." In the case of Washington, we found a very substantial difference in the way the work is done. Flow measurements are done on the order of three, and the extrapolations were extreme. USGS would not publish that kind of data. Clearly the kind of product is different than that of USGS gages. Another, comparison with the Lower Colorado River Authority in Texas found their gages were very similar to the USGS's gages, and their expenses were within 1 % of USGS costs. Bob invited folks to look at their work and suggest any ways USGS could work in a more cost effective manner. An internal USGS committee is working to find ways to be more cost effective. . Regarding some suggestions they have already received, Bob said, "We can work out arrangements on a limited basis to share work. We have done so with tribes and in the state of Nebraska. Others do a large part of the data gathering work, and we serve it up on the USGS system." He added, "We are moving more and more to handheld devices to do our measurements. We are utilizing satellites and acoustic DopIer radar technology to get more work per unit of labor. A committee has been constituted to examine every aspect of our stream gaging network." Lastly, Bob explained that in the last couple of months a circumstance arose that the Bureau of IndianAffairs (BIA), which funds a number of streamgages, but changed their decision making process for allocation of funds. Across seven states, mainly in the Missouri Basin, there have been substantial cutbacks in BIA streamgaging funding. A number of you have communicated the crucial need to fund these gages for the tribes. Questions and Answers Phil Ward: Is there a cost analysis available? Bob: Not yet. But it will be out soon. Weir Labatt: With the increase in the budget, how will it be allocated? What will it do for us? Bob: The fully fleshed out network shows any certain state gets a percentage of the program. It is about a 20% increase. . 6