Budget AHG/TWG/GCMRG/USBR Combined Budget Conference Call June 14 2010

Home Browse Search

Glen Canyon Dam Technical Work Group Page 2 DRAFT Minutes of June 14, 2010 Combined Conference Call report by June 18 but is a little concerned that there isn't much wiggle room if something goes haywire between now and this Friday. There is no time for them to be able to present their findings without Reclamation approval given the sensitivity of the issue. He said their presentation would probably be 30 minutes and then allow some time for discussion. He said they would only be providing information and wouldn't get into making a recommendation. He feels the call could be done in an hour. He said USGS assumed MLFF with steady flows, Sept -Oct and a potential high flow in one or both years. They would be using the FYI hydrograph as it was provided in early April. Rick asked about other hydrographs that people may want to present. John said they are using the WY FYI hydrology, 11 maf and 8.23 and then they're evaluating several different scenarios for how the dam would be operated, like MLFF, equalized monthly flows, SASF, etc., imposed on the WY11 hydrology as of April 8. John said he sent out a memo to the TWG several weeks ago with the scope of what their analysis would be. Budget Discussion Norm said that since so much of the budget revolves around the hydrograph whether any assumptions could be made. Dennis said with the amount of variability that even the range of annual volumes is very high and the 24 -month study is run every month. He said August is the first tier for a cut point on the next water year and then in April under the interim guidelines is where it's decided you establish whether or not you have to go to balancing or equalization. As far as sideboards, Dennis said he couldn't offer up a lot except to say that the range is probably between 8.23 and 14 maf. The most probable right now includes some level of equalization. He said that what was sent out in the graphs that they're now removing does portray about 11 maf but he didn't know beyond that. He said there is existing compliance so people need to recognize that if something is crafted in a hydrograph that goes outside existing compliance, additional compliance will certainly have to be worked into the process. Maior funding shifts in GCMRC FYI 1-12 Biennial Work Plan. John explained the accommodations GCMRC made for new initiatives and projects that were deferred. He referred to Attachment 3 of his June 9, 2010, memo (attached). He said it was a little vague because there wasn't a bottom line recommendation or formal language adopted but they did include funding for non- native fish control and for development of an LTEMP EIS. They freed up some money in Reclamation's budget as well as moving money from GCMRC's budget to Reclamation's budget to allow for about $600K in FYI for non- native fish control and an additional $300K in FY12. Shane said he didn't see where the $600K was in the budget as a line item. Barbara said it's not shown as a line item but said when she talked with Dennis, it was agreed to not increase that value since it was coming from different sides of the budget on line 24 but just to put it in the comments. Because the proposals have not been implemented, they would show the budget as it was proposed until direction was received to actually move the funding around. Extirpated Species Workshop. Steve said in terms of #8 that went to the AMWG and was voted on in terms of $25K for an extirpated species workshop wasn't identified as an AMWG priority. He said he wasn't sure how to make that an AMWG priority other than the process isn't being followed the entire time to make it shown as a priority but it's still not in the budget or hasn't been addressed. He asked John how they reached that decision. John said it was his recollection that every year there are proposals to get more actively involved in extirpated species with the AMP budget and it runs into a brick wall about whether it's appropriate that the AMP deal with extirpated species. He said he makes some judgments where he thinks there is broad support for items that are likely to be funded, but spending AMP money on something there hasn't been a lot of support for is not something he wants to get engaged in. Steve said he didn't understand how John reached that conclusion based on the fact that it was passed by the TWG and made it to the AMWG discussions for doing the work. He said he is having trouble with following the process and how now the project doesn't have broad support. He asked if he needed to document the broad support. John said the issues came forward not because everyone wanted them but because it was felt they needed to go forward and be discussed and that there wasn't broad consensus that everything would be funded associated with the 20 different motions the TWG passed. John said the TWG never voted to fund a workshop but to forward the issue to AMWG for further discussion. Shane told Steve it would be voted on again by