Summary:  The overall purpose of the Accord STAR reports is to summarize and present information about project implementation progress, and the outcome of actions, that result from the 2008 Columbia Basin Fish Accord agreement (Accord), in support of the National Ocean and the Atmospheric Administration’s 2008 Biological Opinion for Federal Columbia River Power System Operations (BiOp).  The reports are meant to convey information and inform judgment in a manner meaningful to the target audiences of the Yakama Nation Tribal and General Councils, program managers, and project implementation practitioners.  Additionally, the reports are designed to provide information regarding the status and trend of species of particular importance to the Yakama Nation, in order to track detectable responses and gauge the effectiveness of actions over time.

Background:  A principal purpose of the Accord agreement is to implement projects that contribute to improved survival and productivity of salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to the levels anticipated in the BiOp.  Written into the Accord is a commitment by the Yakama Nation to assess implementation efforts and report the impact of these projects, including (a) an annual reporting of progress (section C.2), and (b) the evaluation of implementation results (section C.3), in order to estimate whether the actions proposed and implemented by the Tribe are having the intended outcome, and producing the expected benefits – in support of the regional recovery goals articulated in the BiOp.

The design of the Status and Trend Annual Report (STAR) project is intended to give meaningful substance to the Accord promise of effective evaluation and reporting.  Documenting the implementation and effect of Accord actions taken by the Yakama Nation – including the status and trend of key species – also serves to validate the assurances given about the expected contributions of BPA-funded projects to the estimate of survival benefits expected to accrue to populations of listed salmon and steelhead.  However, STAR reports too overly broad in nature will not address the need to track activities and report on progress at a scale small enough, and in a manner sufficiently useful, to enable local adaptive management evaluation and adjustment.  With information summarized at ESU/DPS, population/subbasin, and assessment unit scales, the STAR project will serve both as a high-level reporting mechanism for the Yakama Nation Tribal Council and managers, and as a more narrowly tailored resource to inform practitioners about refinements needed in implementation strategies.  
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Current Contract Period

Status: In this contract period, the Yakama Nation will continue to refine and evolve the high-level summary status reports initiated as draft versions in the prior contract term. These reports are addressed to the Yakama Nation’s Accord-funded implementation progress in the areas of habitat restoration and the management of hatchery production or supplementation activities.  Also in this period, staff will begin to produce a summary report of the status of action implementation in hydrosystem operations and hydrological restoration as they impact salmonid, lamprey and sturgeon populations of concern to the Yakama Nation – in the observed and projected performance reported elsewhere within the region, such as for purposes of compliance reporting by the action Agencies under the FCRPS BiOp.  A summary report will also be updated for the status and trends of species that are a priority to the Yakama Nation.

Each of these reports will be developed in close coordination with the BPA, other action agencies, and relevant resource managers and implementing entities.  The emphases in the summary status reports are to:  (1) track the efforts to implement the projects described in the Accord agreement; and (2) provide estimated habitat quality improvement and survival benefits from the implemented projects (or suite of projects) by reporting trends in the status of ESA-listed salmon and steelhead populations, based on key limiting factors and the progress being made in addressing those identified ecological limitations (see, 2008 Fish Accords, section C.3.).

Note: Yakama policy and program staff are not indifferent to the sensitivities associated with reporting on hydrosystem operations.  We appreciate the perception of risk inherent in an independent review, and the concern that a report may prove to be insufficiently connected to or grounded in ongoing performance reporting under the BiOp.  We understand the potential for disagreements or misunderstanding from a review that could draw inconsistent or differing conclusions about the effectiveness of actions and adjustments in operations – negotiated in the BiOp and incorporated into the Accords – as implemented by the Action Agencies. However, the language of the Accord agreement encompasses the hydrosystem performance reporting we expect to be a component of the STAR project:  “The Action Agencies acknowledge that the Tribes’ ability to monitor and verify performance of the FCRPS under the BiOps is essential to their participation in this MOA, and the Action Agencies support such monitoring and verification … .” (Section II.D., at p.5).  

The scope of reporting proposed in this SOW is consistent with the language of the Accord, and reflects the expectations of the Yakama Nation about the role of the STAR project.  Rather than an independent analysis, our report is a summary and interpretation of existing hydro system evaluations in order to best inform the target audiences from a Tribal/regional Yakama perspective about the areas and concerns that are most important to them.  Remember that project staff serve a Tribal Membership that will be asked in the coming years what they think about the consequences of this 10-year Accord arrangement with BPA.  To address their needs and inform their consideration will require report products that conclude whether we think progress is being made under the BiOp.  To meet that objective requires an approach to reporting grounded in the answers to two questions: (1) whether the actions we and the region said we were going to take, got done; and (2) whether the results of those actions are what we thought and said would be the outcome?  

To help manage the appearance of risk or uncertainty in answering these questions, we proceed openly and collaboratively in the development of the report products.  Because the potential for misunderstanding or disconnect may linger, it is important to say what the hydrosystem report is intended to be, and what it is not.  To be clear, we propose no new and independent analysis of effectiveness in our review.  Our approach will be to compile and synthesize a summary of the available analysis and evaluation developed by others (for example, in the recently released 2013 Comprehensive Evaluation).  Our purpose is to report what others are concluding about the effectiveness of actions, in a manner that is discernable to and digestible by the Tribal Council and members to whom we report.  
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Future Direction / Potential Challenges:

The 2014 - 2015 contract period efforts will entail continued development of the status and trends reporting system and its products.  The purpose of a web-enabled database system is to increase reporting efficiencies, accessibility, relevancy, and timeliness – where large printed reports are costly, inefficient, and impractical for modern consumers of information.  The region covered by the STAR reporting construct is approximately 12 million acres, encompassing habitats used by the treaty-trust aquatic natural resources of the Yakama Nation.  The project goal is a hierarchical information structure, easily updatable and database-supported, to support managing actions and information across such a broad ecosystem, and enable at least a partially-automated generation and updating of reports.

This foundational structure of the STAR project continues to be under development, with functionality added gradually to the detailed reports and website. The web-based supporting sections of the STAR project will present a searchable hierarchical structure with downloadable/printable summary reports and detailed sections of species status and trend, the Yakama Nation’s habitat restoration actions and their targeted benefits, and monitoring information as it is available.  As time allows, we hope to explore the possibility and utility of incorporating additional information about projects funded by sources other than BPA, as well as information about other species.

The approach outlined going forward is meant to ensure that STAR products are capable of adeptly managing information that is a current and accurate input to decisions that support the FCRPS BiOp process – sufficiently robust to correlate improvements in habitat conditions and the benefits of hatchery production to changes in salmon productivity, abundance and spatial diversity in a trackable, timely, and replicable manner.  In this way, the function of the STAR reports is also an essential component of validating the commitment that investments made in Accord-funded activities are delivering on the assurances that project outcomes will contribute positively to the survival benefits associated with estimated habitat quality improvements under the BiOp.  Conversely, if the funding is going to the wrong projects because results are less than projected, Yakama Nation managers want to know so that money and effort can be redirected to more effective actions.

Yakama Nation management and policy staff understand the sensitivities associated with reporting that can appear duplicative, and may be layered on top, of other regionally-derived reporting products and processes – especially given the release of the 2013 Comprehensive Evaluation under the BiOp in a time period contemporaneous with the development and review of this contract SOW.  The proposed reports and web resource will be reviewed by staff to ensure adequacy, consistency with the 2008 Fish Accords, compatibility with other regional efforts, and the usefulness of reported information.  Drafts will also be submitted to interested parties for review.  Comments will be incorporated into future drafts with the intention to continue refining the products and maintaining relevancy to the region over time.  Detailed sections of the reporting website may have limited public accessibility, particularly for information deemed to be sensitive, or susceptible to misrepresentation and misinterpretation by others.