Incorporation of Governance Committee Comments on draft IMRC

Home Browse Search

Mr. Paul Tebbel 3 monitoring and research remain unresolved in the document. Because significant ecosystem processes such as sediment transport, nutrient flow, and water temperature function across the entire drainage basin, we believe the Program should consider the entire geologic and hydrologic basin from the Platte River tributaries to the Missouri River confluence for purposes of monitoring select ecosystem processes. In addition, the identification of "other basin - associated species" should be included as a list in the document. Where Program activities may adversely affect these species, monitoring activities should be considered to understand the effects of the Program on their populations and habitats. This is an important monitoring function in consideration of one of the major Program purposes which is to help prevent the need to list more basin associated species pursuant to the Endangered Species Act. The focus of monitoring and research should be on species and habitats in the central Platte River, however other geographic areas and other species may need to be considered. When possible, the IMRC should consider and incorporate monitoring and research being done by other agencies and organizations. Reporting and Communication The document lacks clear explanation of how the "adaptive loop" will be closed through communication between management, monitoring, and research. There should be more discussion of the process of annual reporting and the development and testing of new "management experiments" through Program management. How will the research and monitoring efforts, reporting the results of past management, be coordinated with future actions including land acquisition and management, and flow management? As the central focus of the adaptive management process in the Program, this report must include more extensive explanation of this crucial step in the evolutionary process of Program management. Budge The estimated budgets section should be removed from the IMRC document. Budget estimates were initially discussed and included for the benefit of the Governance Committee and do not belong in the IMRC document. They represent a cursory effort to estimate monitoring and research costs. Until a more objective and deliberative process is carried out to produce these numbers, we believe that they may be more misleading than useful. This section may, however, be added as supplemental information accompanying the document. It will be important to develop a useful monitoring and research program that is as cost effective as possible. Conclusion The document currently provides a substantial foundation for developing a working adaptive management program for Platte River endangered species recovery. While our staffs had a significant number of relatively minor substantive and editorial comments on the document, we