See other minutes at: Technical Committee / Land Committee / Water Management Committee / Water Action Plan Committee
Final Minutes
Governance Committee Meeting
Renaissance Inn, Denver CO
March 9-10, 2005
Public Comments -- No comments were expressed.
Budget
Whooping Crane Monitoring
Dale Strickland, Executive Director, explained that the Governance Committee (GC) had approved two seasons
of funding for whooping crane monitoring prior to the fall 2004 season, on the condition that spending
authority was requested again before the spring 2005 season. Dale noted that sufficient funds remained
in the budget to complete the spring monitoring. The GC approved the request.
Cottonwood Ranch Cost Recognition
Dale Strickland reported that the GC approved research efforts conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS) on Nebraska Public Power District's (NPPD's) Cottonwood Ranch Property in 2004 had been paid by
the Bureau of Reclamation. The GC was asked to recognize this cost so that crediting through the Nebraska
Community Foundation could be conducted. The GC approved the request.
Adaptive Management Plan
An update was provided on adaptive management workshops conducted February 22-24, 2005. After the update Dale Strickland explained what modifications had been made to the Adaptive Management Plan (AMP) based on the workshop and comments received after the workshop. The GC agreed that work was still needed in the document related to linking hypotheses to management objectives, management actions, and indicators. This work was planned for the GC Negotiating Team session.
March 10, 2005
Adaptive Management Plan
After negotiations on March 9 and morning of March 10, the GC reconvened a short business meeting to discuss the Adaptive Management Plan and edits made to the document. The GC agreed that this Adaptive Management Plan (3/9/05) is a working document that is designed to be sufficient to meet the needs of the Programmatic Biological Opinion (PBO) being prepared by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and also to meet a deadline of completing a Record of Decision (ROD) by December 2005. As such, it contains language reflecting a fundamental commitment by the GC to pursue and test the concepts of "clear-level- pulse" and "habitat complexes", with additional details related to the specific hypotheses to be tested and field tests to be developed. In the future (subsequent to this date, 3/9/05) additional and competing hypotheses will be added, but the fundamental commitment to test the concepts of clear-level-pulse, habitat complexes, and competing hypotheses will remain. The GC also agrees that the channel capacity issue will be addressed in the Water Plan.
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