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| A | 5635 | 119 | Manage and Administer Projects | Coordinate ISAB activities and administer contracts | Arrange travel and meeting rooms, pay member fees, coordinate schedule, facilitate filling vacancies, and provide liaison with the Council. | $24,000 | 6.76% | 06/01/2006 | 09/01/2006 |
| B | 5636 | 122 | Provide Technical Review and Recommendation | Harvest | The ISAB's 2000 Workplan included a harvest assignment that was approved by the Council and NOAA Fisheries. In 2000, the ISAB developed a review outline and received briefings from NMFS's harvest team and Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC). However, because the ISAB was focused on other tasks, the review did not progress beyond the outline stage. With the completion of three major ISAB reports in 2003 (Flow, Tributary Habitat, and Supplementation), the ISAB focused its attention on the harvest assignment. The ISAB reviewed and revised its previous report outline, and agreed that the issues previously identified remained important and should continue to form the basis of a response.
In Fiscal Years 2003 and 2004, the ISAB made significant progress on the harvest report and a preliminary draft of the entire report is scheduled for discussion at the ISAB's October 2004 meeting. The ISAB review focuses on the scientific issues associated with harvest management, establishment of biological management goals, the information needs for monitoring and evaluation, and relationship of harvest to recovery planning. The report will address the fundamental topic of what now constitutes a sound scientific basis for the management of Pacific salmonids in the Columbia River Basin. Subtopics of interest include the ability to manage for smaller population groups given current methodologies, the concept of "over spawning", the role of salmon in the ecosystem, the treatment of uncertainty in stock assessments and management evaluation, and the assessment of harvest within a life cycle and recovery context. In addition, as described in more depth below under the climate change assignment, the harvest review will include an examination of the effects of climate variability on the marine environment and the interplay of harvest, hatchery production, and varying ocean regimes. Harvest remains an important scientific issue and could become increasingly so in the immediate future if marine survival continues to improve resulting in large returns of some stocks. Are there large-scale experiments that could address some of the uncertainties associated with harvest?
| $20,000 | 5.63% | 01/01/2005 | 02/28/2005 |
| C | 5637 | 122 | Provide Technical Review and Recommendation | Council Research Plan | Over the past several years, the Council has developed a draft basinwide research plan that identifies key uncertainties for the 2000 Fish and Wildlife Program and the steps needed to resolve them. The process for developing the plan has included independent scientific review, input from fish and wildlife agencies and tribes, independent scientists, and other interested parties in the region. In 2002, in response to an initial draft plan, the ISRP recommended that the Council convene a workshop with the ISRP, ISAB, and Independent Economic Advisory Board (IEAB) to identify key uncertainties and priority research needs. In 2003, the groups conducted such a workshop. Council staff incorporated the uncertainties identified at the workshop into the current draft plan. The ISAB and ISRP should consider approaches to resolving these uncertainties such as requests for proposals and large-scale and/or pilot experiments. | $22,000 | 6.20% | | 02/28/2005 |
| D | 5638 | 122 | Provide Technical Review and Recommendation | State of the Science: the "Chemical" Habitat | In an effort related to the Council's research plan, the ISAB will likely chair a "State of the Science" symposium on the "chemical" habitat of the Columbia River Basin (i.e., toxic contaminants, including current use pesticides as well as legacy compounds). The ISAB will likely produce a summary from the symposium that includes recommendations on how to best incorporate the current knowledge and uncertainties associated with the Columbia River's chemical habitat in recovery plans and actions. Review questions may include: should decades-old estimates of fecundity and viability of species be revisited due to changes in water quality? | $20,000 | 5.63% | | 09/30/2005 |
| E | 5639 | 122 | Provide Technical Review and Recommendation | Research, Monitoring and Evaluation Reviews | In FY 2004, the ISAB will likely be asked to continue its role in reviewing regional plans aimed at monitoring and evaluating the status of fish and wildlife populations in the basin and the effectiveness of projects at benefiting those populations. In the winter of 2003 and 2004, the ISAB and ISRP jointly reviewed the Action Agencies and NOAA Fisheries' draft Research, Monitoring and Evaluation Plan for the NOAA-Fisheries 2000 Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion, which was designed to help implement the 2000 FCRPS BiOp and the Federal Caucus Basinwide Salmon Recovery Strategy. The ISAB may be asked to review Action Agency and NOAA plans that were informed by that draft document and the ISRP/AB review.
In the past two years, the Council worked with federal, state, and tribal fish and wildlife entities to expand the US Forest Service's ongoing regional monitoring effort under the Northwest Forest Plan to form the Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring Partnership (PNAMP). Early in 2005, PNAMP plans to release a draft regional monitoring plan and request a joint review by the ISRP and ISAB. This plan should incorporate the Action Agencies' revised RME plan under the remanded 2000 BiOp and be linked with the Council's Research Plan. The ISRP and ISAB reviews of the Council's Research Plan, PNAMP products, and potential RME proposals will be closely coordinated. The ISAB/RP will compare the plans, products and proposals and identify gaps and areas of consensus, disagreement, and redundancy. This effort could include holding information gathering meetings or workshops similar in organization to the ISAB model synthesis workshop in 2000.
| $20,000 | 5.63% | 02/01/2005 | 09/30/2005 |
| F | 5640 | 122 | Provide Technical Review and Recommendation | Council Mainstem Amendment - Study Design Review | In April 2003, the Council adopted mainstem amendments to its Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program. These amendments included a description of river conditions and tests of dam operations intended to protect fish and wildlife that utilize mainstem rivers as habitat. In 2004, the Council and the region began discussing study implementation and design issues for tests of fish survival under various dam operation scenarios. If discussions on experiments arise in FY 2005, the ISAB may be requested to participate in workshops or review study designs related to those experiments. If specific proposals are solicited, the ISRP will conduct the review. | $125,000 | 35.21% | | 09/30/2005 |
| G | 5641 | 122 | Provide Technical Review and Recommendation | Subbasin Plan Review | In FY 2004, the ISRP and ISAB jointly reviewed all subbasin plans submitted for the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program and provided comments on the scientific soundness of the plans and recommendations on how the plans could be more effective. The Council used the ISRP/AB report to develop an overall strategy to adopt the plans into the Fish and Wildlife Program. Some plans are ready to adopt into the program in their current state or with minor changes. Other plans will require significant revisions, often to address scientific issues raised by the ISRP/AB. Although a formal plan for further ISRP/AB review is not scheduled, the Council may request the ISRP/AB to evaluate whether plan revisions adequately address the ISRP/AB's scientific concerns and result in a plan that is consistent with the Fish and Wildlife Program and its Scientific Principles. In addition, the ISAB and ISRP identified programmatic issues that applied across numerous basins. Some of these issues, such as the use of analytical tools and the need for RME plans, may warrant a more in-depth ISRP/AB review. | $30,000 | 8.45% | | 09/30/2005 |
| H | 5642 | 122 | Provide Technical Review and Recommendation | Review of NOAA Fisheries' Draft ESA Analyses | A. Technical Recovery Team Draft Products
NOAA Fisheries may request the ISAB to review draft products of TRTs addressing Columbia River salmon listings. The TRTs are multi-agency technical workgroups lead by NOAA-Fisheries. Staff of the Northwest or Southwest Fisheries Science Center chair each of the TRTs. The initial task of all of the TRTs is to determine preliminary biological criteria necessary to ensure the viability of Evolutionarily Significant Units (ESUs) listed under the Endangered Species Act and then to help develop and evaluate various options for meeting these criteria (for general information on recovery planning see www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/trt/index.html).
In FY 2004, at NOAA Fisheries' request, the ISAB reviewed a TRT draft document titled Independent Populations of Chinook, Steelhead, and Sockeye for Listed Evolutionarily Significant Units Within the Interior Columbia River Domain, which was produced by the Interior Columbia River Technical Recovery Team. For FY 2005, NOAA Fisheries is likely to request that the ISAB review additional Columbia River TRT documents. The anticipated ISAB budget to participate in reviews of TRT drafts is $20,000.
B. Scientific Issues related to the evaluation of extinction risk of complex taxa
NOAA-Fisheries is currently dealing with two interesting and potentially controversial scientific problems. The first relates to how to biologically evaluate the contribution that hatchery fish make toward an ESU's viability. This topic is particularly important due to NOAA-Fisheries' Proposed Policy on evaluating hatchery fish in ESA listing decisions, which was released for public comment in June, 2004. The second issue relates to how to evaluate the viability of Oncorhynchus mykiss ESUs that contain both resident and anadromous populations. Some of the O. mykiss ESUs identified by NOAA-Fisheries as threatened or endangered under the ESA also contain resident components that were not listed. NOAA Fisheries may seek the ISAB's advice on how to evaluate the contribution to viability made by resident populations. These reviews would likely follow completion of the ISAB's Harvest Report and begin in January 2005. | $40,000 | 11.27% | 01/15/2005 | 04/30/2005 |
| I | 5643 | 122 | Provide Technical Review and Recommendation | Impacts of Climate Change on Fish and Wildlife Restoration | The Council Request
The potential impacts of global climate change are recognized at national and international levels. In addition, the impacts of short and longer-term climate variation and ocean conditions are now recognized as major contributors to fluctuations and trends in salmon abundance coast-wide. While a widely recognized phenomenon, the impacts of climate change are rarely incorporated into natural resource planning. The ISAB noted that the Council's program and the NOAA Fisheries recovery strategies do not consider the impacts of climate change and implicitly assume a level base case. However, the changes in regional snow pack and stream flows in the Columbia Basin projected by many climate models could have a profound impact on the success of restoration efforts and the status of Columbia River fish and wildlife populations.
In April 2002, the Council asked the ISAB to commence a review of the potential impacts of climate change on the success and direction of the Council's fish and wildlife program and on fish and wildlife restoration in the Columbia Basin. The ISAB should review projections of climate change and synthesize the current scientific understanding of climate trends in the Pacific Northwest and how these affect biologically important parameters such as marine conditions, stream flow, temperatures, and species ranges. The board should focus on how these trends could impact the success of restoration efforts and suggest how consideration of these trends might impact the direction of the Council's program and how the region should incorporate knowledge of climate trends in fish and wildlife planning and management.
The ISAB Approach
In development of the ISAB's 2003 work plan, the ISAB decided to defer full initiation of a climate change review until completion of its Tributary Habitat and Supplementation reports. Those reports were completed in March and June of 2003, and at its June and July 2003 meeting the ISAB discussed how to best address the climate change assignment given its current membership, workplan, and resources. The ISAB remains interested in completing this deferred task. Short and medium cyclic climate variation (El Nino/La Nina and Pacific Decadal Oscillations) as well as longer trends in climate change are likely to impact the efficacy of choices for restoration and preservation of fish and wildlife habitats under the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program.
The Council requested that the climate change review address two distinct areas of concern: 1) the ocean environment and 2) the freshwater environment. In 2004, the board bifurcated the review to first address the effect of climate variability on the ocean environment. As stated above, the ISAB is incorporating this analysis in the harvest review. This approach allows the ISAB to explore the relationship between varying ocean regimes, hatchery production, and harvest rates. In addition, the ISAB will address the Council's question of how climate change may affect the frequency of short-term variation in oceanic conditions such as El Nino events as well as longer term overall marine productivity.
Regarding the freshwater component of the review, the ISAB discussed including climate change in its tributary habitat assignment and did in fact include climate change considerations throughout the report. However, the Tributary Habitat Report did not explicitly address climate change and the ISAB believes a more complete review is warranted. Following completion of the Harvest Report, the ISAB intends to plan a thorough review of freshwater climate change issues. Since the Council first requested this review, significant scientific effort has been applied to issues related to the potential impact of climate change in the Pacific Northwest on the freshwater environment including changes to snow pack, stream flow, and species distribution. In September 2004, a regional conference directly relevant to the ISAB assignment was held, "Climate Impacts on Salmon Management and Recovery in the Columbia River Basin." Consequently, the ISAB will need to scope the literature and analyses currently available to the region to determine whether an ISAB review would add value. If necessary the ISAB will synthesize literature from these recent efforts and focus on describing the potential scale of the impacts of climate change on the success of ongoing restoration efforts and how the uncertainty of impacts could be best incorporated into fish and wildlife planning and management. Thus, the review should be useful in informing future program amendments and recovery planning. The review should take approximately four to six months and be complete by September 2005.
It is important to note that soon after the climate change review was assigned, the Board's foremost experts on climate change, Drs. Dennis Lettenmaier and Daniel Schindler, resigned due to other time commitments. Consequently, the ISAB's ability to conduct the reviews on a short timeframe is significantly diminished. For both components of the review, the ISAB intends to request briefings and enlist ad hoc members to augment its expertise. Dr. Lettenmaier has agreed to assist the ISAB in its review efforts.
| $30,000 | 8.45% | | 09/30/2005 |
| J | 5644 | 122 | Provide Technical Review and Recommendation | Human Population Growth: Impact on Fish and Wildlife Restoration | The Council Request
Like climate change, the impact of an increasing human population in the Columbia Basin is a widely recognized issue but one that is rarely incorporated into fish and wildlife planning. Human population of the Columbia Basin is increasing rapidly, a trend that is expected to continue. This increase is not occurring uniformly across the basin but is largely concentrated in and around urban areas. The increased population will potentially impact non-urban areas as well through increased recreation and housing in riparian and rural areas. At the same time, the economic makeup of the region is shifting with the potential for both positive and negative impacts on fish and wildlife habitats. The ISAB has pointed out that the Council's program and NOAA-Fisheries' restoration plans do not include consideration of these trends but rather, like climate change, assume a level base case. Because most the Council's efforts concern how to mitigate for or constrain human impact on fish and wildlife habitats, it behooves the Council to consider human demographic trends and their potential impact on fish and wildlife habitats.
In April 2002, the Council asked the ISAB to provide an analysis of the projected trends and patterns in human population growth patterns in the Columbia Basin and how these might affect the success and direction of the Council's program. The Council asked that the Board: 1) review information on population projections and patterns of human population increases across the landscape, 2) discuss how these changes might affect fish and wildlife habitats and address how projected changes in economic patterns might moderate or exacerbate these impacts, and 3) suggest how human demographic changes could be effectively incorporated into fish and wildlife planning. The board should be clear that the Council is not asking for recommendations or conclusions on the need for changes in land use laws or other social aspects not associated with the development of subbasin plans and the Council's program.
The ISAB Approach
Like the Climate change review, this review was postponed pending completion of the tributary habitat and supplementation reports in 2003, and subbasin plan review in 2004. This review is not as an immediate priority as the reviews listed above and will not be completed in time to benefit this round of subbasin planning. The ISAB agrees that human demographic change is a significant issue and is not well covered in the basin as evidenced in the subbasin plans (with the notable exception of the Willamette).
The ISAB is currently scoping an approach to this assignment but has not reached agreement on how to address the review or even whether it's the best entity to conduct the review. One approach the ISAB discussed and rejected is to collect census data and conduct some geographically focused independent analysis. The ISAB agreed that its operation is not conducive to that type of an exercise. The ISAB has identified several alternative, and more tractable, approaches and will further scope these approaches early in 2005.
These alternative approaches include:
1) Cover the assignment in the Research Plan review. The Council's draft research plan should describe this uncertainty, and the ISAB's review could assist in best framing the issue.
2) Draft a memo to the Council that identifies the gap in subbasin plans and suggests the need for a request for proposals to address the uncertainty.
3) Expand the tributary habitat portion of the climate change review to include other long-term external drivers such as human demographic change.
4) Hold a "State of the Science" review, where the ISAB would assist the Council in organizing a workshop and provide a meeting summary with recommendations on how the region might best consider human demographic change in fish and wildlife management efforts.
The ISAB may need to enlist the services of an ad hoc member to complete this assignment. | $20,000 | 5.63% | 01/01/2005 | 09/30/2005 |
| K | 5645 | 141 | Produce Other Reports | Quarterly Progress Reports | Quarterly status reports of progress. | $1,000 | 0.28% | 04/01/2005 | 09/30/2005 |
| L | 5646 | 132 | Produce Progress (Annual) Report | Report of ISAB Accomplishments in FY05 | A wrap-up for the grant demonstrating that its work was completed or reasons why it was not, posted for public access and documentation. | $3,000 | 0.85% | 09/01/2005 | 10/15/2005 |
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