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Summary Nebraska, and visited the Rowe Sanctuary and Shelton Cottonwood Demography Site. The third meeting (held in Boulder, Colorado) was not open to the public, so the committee could complete its report. Members of the committee visited DOl researchers at their installations in Denver and Grand Island, The committee also reviewed documents describing the methods and procedures used by DOl investigators in reaching their determinations and other written documentation provided by experts and the public, The focus of the committee's review is the habitat needs ofthe Platte River endangered and threatened species, The ESA protects critical habitat, defined as the specific areas that contain physical or biological features essential to the conservation of the species and that may require special management considerations or protection (ESA 9 3(5)), This report uses the term only to refer to areas that have been formally designated under the ESA. Other key terms in the statement oftask, defined hy the committee for the purpose of this report, are limit, which was interpreted by the committee to mean adversely affect or influence; recovery, interpreted to mean improvement in the status of listed species to the point at which they would no longer be designated as endangered or threatened; and survival, interpreted to mean the persistence of the listed entity, This report represents the unanimous consensus of all members of the National Research Council committee, It is limited to the specific charge as agreed on by the Research Council, USFWS, USBR, and the Governance Committee (Box S-I). To address its charge, the committee considered the extent of the data available for each question and whether the data were generated according to standard scientific methods that included, when feasible, empirical testing, The committee also considered whether those methods were sufficiently documented and whether and to what extent they had been replicated, whether either the data or the methods used had been published and subject to public comment or been formally peer reviewed, whether the data were consistent with accepted understanding of how the systems function, and whether they were explained by a coherent theory or model of the system, To assess the scientific validity of the methods used to develop instream flow recommendations, the committee applied the criteria listed above, but focused more directly on the methods. For example, the committee considered whether the methods used were in wide use or generally accepted in the relevant field and whether sources of potential error in the methods have been or can be identified and the extent of potential error estimated. The committee acknowledges that none of the above criteria is decisive, but taken together they provide a good sense of the extent to which any conclusion or decision is supported by science. Because some ofthe decisions in question were made many years ago, the committee felt that it was important to ask whether they were supported by the existing sci~nce at the time they were made. For that purpose, the committee asked, in addition to the questions above, whether the decision-makers had access to and made use of state-of-the-art knowledge at the time of the decision. The study committee did not evaluate three items that are closely related to, but not part of, its charge: USBR's draft environmental impact statement, which was completed and released after the committee finished its deliberations on this report; an advanced computer model, SEDVEG, to evaluate the interactions among hydrology, river hydraulics, sediment transport, and vegetation being developed, but not yet completed or tested, by USBR for application on the Platte River; and the Central Platte River Recovery Implementation Program proposed in the cooperative agreement by the Governance Committee. 5 . . .