Technical Work Group Meetings 2009

Home Browse Search

Glen Canyon Dam Technical Work Group Page 11 Minutes of July 16 -17, 2008, Meeting ' GCMRC has 106 responsibilities but their compliance is picked up by USBR and NPS and should have a signatory. Helen said she participated in that meeting and one of my concerns is that NPS and USBR are trying to set up a PA for operations of GCD without mentioning the AMP. Kurt suggested the CRAHG get with Mike Berry and develop a report identifying the concepts for an MOA and bring it to the TWG for review and discussion. Election of the New TWG Chair for FY09. Mark Steffen nominated Shane Capron. Shane accepted the nomination. Shane expressed two concerns: 1) the possibility of using a facilitator for TWG meetings. Since WAPA would be paying his salary, he felt that freed up the TWG Chair reimbursement funds, and 2) he would also like to be able to make substantive scientific comments on behalf of for WAPA when warranted in TWG meetings. Bill Davis expressed concern that the TWG chair remain neutral. Don Ostler said he has been associated ' with many other boards and they work fine. They all know that the chair has the right and ability to raise information for their advocacy. Dennis said the use of a facilitator would still need AMWG approval because it has changes in the budget as to what a line item is being used for. Without objection, Shane was nominated as the new TWG Chair. Adaptive Management Progression: Potential Transition from Experiments to Management Actions. Dennis Kubly presented five slides and said he would like to get feedback from the TWG on the ' difference between experiments and management actions. There will be aspects that will be technical and remanded to the AMWG such as the HFT science plan. John Hamill asked if there was a distinction between what is an experimental action or a management action. Dr. Garrett said the adaptive management process is based on a science based program. He said it's important in adaptive management for having some basis for what the group does. They need a definition as to when the experimental action is fruitful and ask the following questions: Will this help the program? Will it help the resource? There is a need to have accountability because we're using the social resources. When is it appropriate to take action? He said most adaptive management programs ' have limited funding so it might have some applications. The other is accountability to the public. It's important when the program takes action. There is no bright line and monitoring is a continuum but the experimentation process provides you have sufficient knowledge to know what the outcome will be. ' Bill Werner commented that in the wake of the HFE and reading some of the newspaper articles, some people have concluded that we have to do them every year or every other year. Then he sees Ted's presentation, the preliminary results and some of the bars created in 2004 are gone. He feels that until we have a good understanding where we're going, it's hard to know what to do. He's also heard a lot about control of non - native fish and said maybe the money should be spent on doing it rather than ' researching it. Jan said one of the biggest concerns is watching things happen without doing something. The other part is they've done a lot of the inventory on sites and identified threats which are important things to consider and are responsible for those resources. They will never know anything for certain so judgment calls have to be based on the best available information. ' Dennis said there are some people who see a hard line between the two but wondered if there are shades of gray. Who pays and who does the work? It's the responsibility of this technical group to make