Regional goals for salmonid population recovery, habitat protection, and sustainable fisheries, are a high priority in the Pacific Northwest. Federal, state, tribal, local, and private aquatic monitoring programs in the Pacific Northwest have evolved independently in response to different organizational mandates, jurisdictional needs, issues and questions. Planning and coordination of monitoring activities have evolved slowly but steadily over the last fifteen years. The Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring Partnership (PNAMP) became a formal institution in 2004, charged with providing a forum for coordination of aquatic monitoring efforts in the region. The geographic area of this coordination includes the Pacific Northwest region from Northern California to Canada where participating entities are implementing monitoring efforts. Currently, 19 state, tribal, federal, and regional entities are signatory partners of the PNAMP charter.  
The guiding principles behind PNAMP are that monitoring will be improved if all programs:
• use consistent monitoring approaches and protocols,
• follow a scientific foundation,
• support monitoring policy and management objectives, and
• collect and present information in a manner that can be shared.

These goals require considerable effort and commitment to collaboration by many entities and individuals. PNAMP strives to provide the forum where this collaboration can occur and to facilitate the exchange among subject matter and policy experts that is necessary to accomplish these goals. Although we are always supportive of more participation, we believe PNAMP has a good combination of participants to address these goals.

In addition to the four guiding principles identified above, PNAMP’s work must also support the following Bonneville Power Administration’s Fish & Wildlife Program (BPA FWP) strategies:
1. Actively support the coordination and standardization of regional and Program monitoring efforts with other federal, state, and tribal monitoring programs including the development and adoption of standard requirements for metrics, sample designs, data collection protocols, data dictionary, metadata, and data access.
2. Work with regional federal, state, and tribal agencies, and non-governmental entities to establish a coordinated, standardized, web-based distributed information network and a regional information management strategy for water, fish, and habitat data. Establish necessary administrative agreements to collaboratively implement and maintain the network and strategy.

The different mandates driving monitoring and subsequent management, policy, and reporting responses require collaboration with other regional and national organizations, as well as many individual participating organizations. Regardless, PNAMP believes that support of coordination and collaboration based on the four guiding principles is important for a successful regional monitoring network. Due to the complexity involved in coordination, the group needs dedicated staff to facilitate discussions between programs and work on specific projects. Staff will facilitate the transfer of information within PNAMP and across all relevant organizations, work to support relationships between and promote communication among organizations to help assure that monitoring plans and information are coordinated across the Pacific Northwest. This proposal describes the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) plan to fulfill the staffing needs for PNAMP. While continuing its membership on PNAMP-related Executive, Steering, and Technical Committees, the USGS is prepared to support PNAMP’s coordination needs by dedicating staff to the coordination function. The Coordination Team will have USGS supervision and administrative support as needed. The Coordination Team will participate in a neutral manner to facilitate efforts of PNAMP, serve as lead staff and liaison among technical groups, assist the interface between Steering Committee members and their executive-level counterparts, and provide fiscal/contract support. As USGS Northwest Regional Office employees, the incumbents would maintain neutrality and interact proactively with state, tribal, and federal entities as well as other stakeholders in PNAMP. This proposal describes specific tasks and costs required by the USGS to provide a Coordinator, support staff for projects, and related operational costs for FY2017.