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PRRIP—ED OFFICE DRAFT 06/13/2014 <br /> 184 average Niobrara peaks are in April. The Platte peaks come at a time when plover nests have been <br /> 185 initiated and terns are in the middle of nest initiation; higher flows lead to nest inundation. Schroeder said <br /> 186 he disagrees with being able to build nesting habitat on the river. Successful nesting islands have been <br /> 187 built at low cost and led to successful nesting in 2008 and 2009. The difficulty is keeping those islands in <br /> 188 place. One way to build semi-permanent habitat would be to clear wooded islands that are already well <br /> 189 above many high flow events. Taddicken said the key seems to be keeping nesting islands available for <br /> 190 one year for nesting. Schneider said it sounds like the ISAC is suggesting we need to do something <br /> 191 different than what has been done before. Is that going outside of the Adaptive Management Plan? <br /> 192 Marmorek said it is really a question of MCM version 1 versus MCM version 2 — that means, building <br /> 193 islands larger and higher than you may have anticipated. <br /> 194 <br /> 195 NOTE: Chad Smith from the EDO took the minutes above on this topic. However, Smith engaged in this <br /> 196 discussion and while doing so Jennifer Hoeting of the ISAC kindly took as many notes as she could <br /> 197 during the discussion. Speakers are identified in places where she knew names. Those notes are <br /> 198 provided below: <br /> 199 1. For BQ6: is this for both on-river and off-river sites? <br /> 200 Marmorek: Only off-channel sites meet the criteria of suitable habitat <br /> 201 2. Czaplewski: $350,000/year spent to collect those data. Can you get similar accuracy by doing only <br /> 202 the off-site sampling(spotting scope)for about$50,000/year? <br /> 203 Marmorek: Based my experience with other controversial river/animal issues, things work more <br /> 204 smoothly when you have the best possible data upon which to base decisions <br /> 205 3. Barels: (scenario slide). Is there a Stn scenario? It could be that these birds are feeding a meta- <br /> 206 population in another location. Need to add this 5th possibility. <br /> 207 Marmorek: yes,this is not an exhaustive list. <br /> 208 Smith:there is a tern meta-population model being created. The program is submitting data to for <br /> 209 this modeling. <br /> 210 4. BQ7: mechanically create habitat which persists long enough: clarify about what you mean. <br /> 211 Marmorek: want island in the channel that is higher and not vegetated. Needs to be able to <br /> 212 survive high flows. <br /> 213 Question: but doesn't the high flow erode them? <br /> 214 5. Czaplewski: Aren't you just asking to repeat what has already been done and failed? Almost 30 <br /> 215 years ago the crane trust built islands but they failed. <br /> 216 Marmorek: not everyone agrees with you. <br /> 217 Czaplewski: many islands have been built in the NP. Pursuing semi-permanent human <br /> 218 constructed islands is not feasible. <br /> 219 ...discussion about different grain sizes on different river systems. <br /> 220 6. If you look at a plot of the discharge of the Niobrara,would the flows look similarly variable? <br /> 221 Farnsworth: discussion of timing of peak flow and nesting timing. <br /> 222 7. Schroeder: I disagree with Czaplewski about not being to create habitat on the river on Audubon and <br /> 223 Crane Trust property. Difficulty is to maintain these. We should just remove trees from existing <br /> 224 islands. <br /> 225 Czaplewski: Habitat was created and it failed. <br /> PRRIP June 10-11,2014 GC Meeting Minutes Page 5 of 11 <br />