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Paper will not be repeated in the text of this report but are presented as Appendix A. The mailing list for the Options Paper and accompa- nying request for review and comments had by then grown to over 450 names. An announce- ment of the availability of the Options Paper, information on a series of four public meetings, and a request for review and comments was also published in the Federal Register. During the comment period in June and July 1992, public meetings were held in Portland (OR), Vicksburg (MS), Valrico (FL), and Baltimore (MD) to pre- sent the Options Paper, answer questions, and solicit public comment. By the completion of the public meetings and the end of the comment period, the number of participants in the policy review process totaled over 200 individuals, groups, organizations, State agriculture agencies, and included fish and wildlife conservation agen- cies from nearly every State. After reviewing all of the public comments, the Committee held two additional public meetings in September and October 1992 to discuss and finalize the draft recommendations. The commit- tee's recommendations were presented to the Task Force on November 20, 1992. The Proposed Report to Congress was cleared for public review with a notice of availability and request for public comment published in the Federal Register on August 27, 1993. The public comment closed on October 25, 1993 and 145 written comments were received from Federal agencies, State agencies, professional societies, academicians, individuals engaged in aquacul- ture, tropical fish businesses, and aquarium hob- byists. The Committee met in a public meeting on January 10, 1994, to consider the comments received and modifications to the Proposed Report in light of those comments. The final report was forwarded to the Task Force for approval on March 1, 1994. BASELINES OF THE REVIEW: A number of important baseline assumptions and decisions were necessary to guide the review process and set a framework for the recommen- dations. In general, these relate to definitions, scope, and emphasis. Section 1207 of the Act does not specify that the Intentional Introductions Policy Review should address itself to nonindigenous species but sim- ply "aquatic organisms." The review could there- fore have considered all aquatic introductions including re-introductions of indigenous species, e.g., hatchery programs that use native stocks or even re-introductions of endangered species. However, because Title I of the Act concerns problems presented by nonindigenous species, the review was limited to nonindigenous species. Even when limited to nonindigenous species, it should be noted that "aquatic organisms" covers a wide variety of organisms (e.g., aquatic plants, invertebrates, fish, bacteria, viruses, etc.) for a wide range of intended uses (e.g., research, pest control, food production, recreation, ornamental, etc.). The Act defines a nonindigenous species as "... any species or other viable biological material that enters an ecosystem beyond its historic range...." This clearly defines the ecosystem as the scale upon which decisions are to be based. The Task Force has chosen to interpret "historic range" to mean the area occupied at the time of European colonization of North America (see Aquatic Nuisance Species (ANS) Program Table 1 definition of "transplants" and Appendix G "Research Protocol").Therefore, the term "his- toric range" equates with natural distribution and the terms indigenous and nonindigenous are essentially synonymous with native and non- native, respectively. Simply being nonindigenous does not constitute sufficient reason to confer nuisance species sta- tus. The Act provides a separate definition of an aquatic nuisance species as a nonindigenous species that "...threatens the diversity or abun- dance of native species or the ecological stability of infested waters, or commercial, agricultural, aquacultural or recreational activities dependent upon such waters." The importance of this defin- ition in carrying out Section 1207 is that the Act makes it clear that threats to indigenous species and their aquatic ecosystems are the "adverse consequences" whose risks are to be reduced. Consideration of threats to user activities follow from their dependence upon indigenous species and the stability of their aquatic ecosystems. The Act did not define intentional introduction but did provide examples of "unintentional" introductions such as the transport of nonindige- nous species in bal]ast water or in water used to transport fish, mollusks or crustaceans for aqua- culture or other purposes. In other words, the `riders' unknowingly brought in are considered