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a wildlife management agencies. They developed a memorandum of understanding to assemble a partnership and construct a habitat protection plan for the endangered fishes. The last signature to this memorandum of understanding was obtained in February. The next step is to develop a 4 cooperative plan and agreement for implementing the plan. The agreement is in process of discussion. The technical teams have agreed upon most of the provisions, but it is not known when the document will be finalized. The FWS continues in partnership with the other parties in agreement with the plan and efforts. The technical group continues to meet. Mr. Sjoberg provided a draft of their working document (Appendix D) with a time line for completion by the summer or fall if possible. The California Water User groups hired a consultant to provide them a risk assessment of risks they were taking in terms of benefits gained by entering into this cooperative agreement. Some of the smaller irrigation and conservation districts in the three states are still questioning whether they should get into this effort, but it appears that the large districts are in the process of agreeing to the effort. In response to a question that sought information from the FWS if the ESA provided for the flexibility for the FWS to agree to a number of plans for threatened and endangered species or . unlisted native fishes, Ms. Starns indicated that the current Secretary of the Interior has maintained in policy to agree with a program so long as it is able to be implemented and will recover the fish, and will agree to accept them as alternatives to FWS implementation. In this effort, FWS has been designated by all the federal agencies involved as the Department of Interior's contact and representative. Mr. Sjoberg indicated that to date, the technical group has not detected any willingness by the various participating parties to back away from the agreement or to delay signing until the fate of ESA has been determined. Also, in response to questions, Mr. Worthley indicated that overall development and implementation has been estimated anywhere from $50-100 million. The development of the plan is estimated to be approximately $7 million. This cost is to be spread over the three states' water management agencies and the federal participants. There are still one or two principal things about the program which have to be decided very soon. One is the final determination that the Department of Interior will, in fact, be a; full partner in the agreement and stand behind this agreement as an answer to the ESA in terms of the big river fishes. The other is to determine specifically what form implementation will take a as the memorandums of agreement are purposely vague in the specifics of the implementation. This latter issue, along with the issue of specific funding, will be controversial, but the two gentlemen felt that there is still a good chance that the plan will be agreed upon and put into effect. Funding is a major issue in many ways, if not only in the fact that there are many agencies and parties that will be signators and they are all different sizes and have all different 4 responsibilities. A method to determine how much and who will fund which activities and which activities will be accomplished remains to be determined. Of all the participants, the water management agencies have the most ready availability to funds to put into this program. The state agencies probably have the least. Everyone to this point is comfortable with these acknowledgments. Mr. Worthley indicated that the primary issues in finally getting agreement 4 12 C7