Additional Questions for Alan Berryman from Ranking Member McMorris Rodgers

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How be central Platte River also improves the pallid sturgeon's lower Platte River habitat. The specific habitat objective that is listed in the Program's milestones is to protect and, where appropriate, restore 10,000 acres of habitat by the end of the first increment of 13 years. The Program provides for an adaptive management plan (AMP) to monitor habitat responses to the management of Program resources. Because there is disagreement on relationships between resource management and the expected outcomes, the AMP is designed to test specific hypotheses associated with these relationships to reduce the level of disagreement and to improve management of Program resources. The AMP includes the appropriate tests during the first increment to evaluate the results associated with goals 1 and 3 above. 11 the stakeholders define success or failure? How will specific successes or be reported to the Natural Resources Committee since the Program will need to horized at some point? Interim successes and failures associated with the Program will be identified through implementation of the AMP as hypotheses are tested, through achievement of the Program milestones, and through continued regulatory certainty for water users during the first increment of the Program. Anoth r Program element calls for 10,000 acres to be used for recovering the species. Have t lese lands been identified? How many are private? Is there a preliminary breakd wn or plan of lands that will be acquired by outright purchase, easement or other means What entity will own the lands that are purchased? Specific lands to be included in the Program are not identified. The vast majority of acres potentially useful to the Program are most likely privately owned. The method to secure the habitat lands requires that lands must be acquired on a willing lessor /seller /grantor basis and that those interests may take the form of fee purchase, easement or long term leases, depending upon the available opportunities. The optimum Program scenario would be for the 10,000 acres to be included in 3 habitat complexes of about 3000 contiguous acres each and some other lands not within the 3 habitat complexes. That scenario will be extremely difficult to make happen given the available monetary resources and constraints on acquiring lands. A land interest holding entity is being created under the Program to hold the land interests of the Program. What a 3surances can you give that nearby rural communities won't experience negative impact associated with federal land acquisition, land being taken out of production or increas d land rents and values for young farmers?