Technical Work Group Meetings 2009

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Glen Canyon Dam Technical Work Group Page 3 DRAFT Minutes of March 16 -17, 2009, Meeting With regard to the 5 -year review of the GCD operating criteria, Tom said it's a policy issue and he couldn't provide any input to the group. I Norm said he would like to make a recommendation the same questions be given to the AMWG as a concern from the TWG. Shane said he would include in his chair report. GCMRC Updates (Attachment 5). Shane said GCMRC was asked to provide written updates rather than making oral presentations. He asked if there were any questions for GCMRC. Shane said the HBC Stock assessment report will be ready for the AMWG meeting and the TWG will be provided a copy of that when it ' becomes available. MRP /SSP. John Hamill said there were three documents provided to the TWG (Attachment 6). He said when the MRP was approved by the AWMG in 2007, it was done so with the recommendation that it reflect ' the outcome of the Long -Term Experimental Plan (LTEP) EIS. When the plan was approved, the Secretary also accepted the condition that it would be updated when the LTEP was completed. The LTEP got derailed and they ended up doing a 5 -year environmental assessment. GCMRC went back to the AMWG last year and told them that given they would have a 5 -year experimental program, it made sense to update the MRP and the SSP to reflect those results. The AMWG passed a motion asking the TWG to work with GCMRC in making those revisions and it was a fairly crafted motion designed to just update the plan to reflect the ' outcomes of the EA (March 2008), the biological opinion that USFWS issued on that EA, as well as the biological opinion that the USFWS issued on the shortage guidelines, which also had recommendations that were relevant to the AMP. In October 2008, they presented a revised version of the SSP and MRP to the TWG. They gave a 30 -day comment period for members to send in written comments. They also extended the comment period and received comments up until February 2009. They received about 25 comments on the SSP and about 400 comments on the MRP from approximately 20 reviewers. He felt the majority of ' comments on the SSP were considered outside the scope of the direction they were given. He said comments were all over the board on both of the documents. They wanted to see major revisions of both documents inspite of his repeated guidance that GCMRC was trying to keep those narrowly focused, but people tended to ignore that. He wasn't interested in opening up the whole MRP and SSP discussion felt it ' was also the AMWG's intent to do so. In talking with the Secretary's Designee, she didn't want the AMWG to do this so only basic revisions were made to the SSP (see pages 3, 5 -7, and page 10). They reference there are new NEPA documents and related biological opinions that would be considered as they put ' together their science strategies and move forward through 2007 -2011. He felt that was a pretty simple fix for the SSP. The MRP was more of a challenge because of the volume of comments received. He said the comments are available and GCMRC responded to about half of them because others fell outside the scope of what they were asked to do. He made a decision that it would be simpler to add an amendment to the MRP and not even open the document. The amendment stated what the EA said, what the biological conservation measures were, and included the science activities GCMRC would propose to conduct in response to those activities. He referenced the March 6, 2009, draft amendment and said the introductory sections on the EA include direct quotes from either the ROD or from the EA itself and then the biological opinion that was issued by the USFWS. Shane referenced the AMWG's motion language and said the TWG needs to develop a motion ' recommending the AMWG approve the changes or not. He asked the TWG for input. SSP Comments: John said he read all the comments and many were basically redefining roles and responsibilities and emphasizing Interior's role in the program, Park Service mandates, etc., and while he felt they were valid comments, he felt they were outside the scope of what they were asked to do. • Page 6 — reference to the LTEP EIS. Even though this is on hold, the compliance is in place for 2008 -2012 unless some court proceeding or decision moves the program in that direction faster. John said he would include language from the FRN (putting the LTEP EIS on hiatus) to satisfy this concern.