Final Minutes
Technical Committee Meeting
CNPPID Eagle Viewing Center
Ogallala, Nebraska
February 25, 2002
Agenda and Minutes
Paul Tebbel, Technical Committee (TC) Chair, called the meeting to order at 1:30 p.m. No changes to the agenda were suggested. The December 2001 TC minutes were accepted with a typographical correction.
Status Reports
Governance Committee and Finance Committee - Dale Strickland, Executive Director, reported that the Governance Committee (GC) held several workshops to address the sediment/vegetation issues and that they have reached tentative agreement. The issue will be addressed through monitoring and research, and topics/tasks and budget were added to the Integrated Monitoring and Research Plan (IMRP). The GC is planning a March 4 workshop to resolve remaining issues needed for EIS and BO analysis. Remaining issues include pallid sturgeon, Program budget, Habitat Protection Plan, and Milestones. Dale noted that peer review should to be added to the Program budget.
Rick Brown, Finance Committee (FC) Chair, reported that the FC and GC reviewed and approved the TC's proposal for whooping crane surveys in spring 2002. The FC is also working on addressing the credit/fair share issues.
Draft EIS/BO - Sharon Whitmore explained that the EIS Team and FWS is waiting for the agreed-upon materials expected from the March 4 GC workshop. It was also noted that the GC and FWS have discussed a process for how the preliminary EIS, BO, and FWCA will be reviewed by the GC and others.
Cottonwood Ranch Monitoring and Research - Clayton Derby distributed information provided by Paul Kinzel. The report summarizes work conducted on Cottonwood Ranch as part of the Cooperative Agreement's monitoring and research. It was also noted that the actual data could be found on the USGS web site. The TC accepted the information as the USGS's annual report with the understanding that a more detailed report would have required extensive review and an official USGS publication. A presentation could be provided by the USGS at a future TC meeting to provide the more detailed information.
Rick Brown noted that an issue likely be addressed by the Structures Committee is the relationship between contractors, NPPD, and the Program for management of Cottonwood Ranch. This will help establish what the "lines of command" and the Program's responsibilities on decisions at Cottonwood Ranch during the First Increment. It may also help clarify how crediting will be handled for other conservation lands included in the Program in the First and subsequent increments, especially when the Program is paying for or getting credit for management activities.
Habitat Protection Plan - Dale explained that a GC subgroup is working with the Drafting Committee to clarify points in the HPP and hopefully it can be resolved for distribution to the EIS Team after the March 4 workshop.
Pallid Sturgeon Monitoring and Research Needs
The TC spent considerable time discussing pallid sturgeon monitoring and research needs. Sharon explained that the GC asked the Grand Island FWS office to develop a list of monitoring and research needs required to fill knowledge gaps at their February workshop. The FWS worked with the Executive Director's office and also had input from the TC's fish subgroup on technical aspects and cost estimates. Dale noted that TC consensus on the information is not anticipated. It was noted that a more broad scale and historical perspective of how the Platte River relates to other areas in regards to pallid sturgeon would help individuals determine what monitoring and research is needed on the Platte. For example, priority management area four includes the lower Platte and parts of the Missouri River. How does work on the Missouri fit into work on the Platte? Concern was raised that impacts from the Missouri River may overwhelm any work or flows in the lower Platte and that coordination between work in the two systems is needed.
Dale explained that the GC has stated that the Program will "test the assumption" that flows from the central Platte impact flows in the lower Platte and also conduct monitoring and research to fill knowledge gaps. This was not clear to all parties. One interpretation expressed was that the GC agreed that the Program would conduct monitoring research needed to fill knowledge gaps to "test the assumption", but that monitoring and research on the biology of the species was not envisioned. It was explained that Ralph Morgenweck, FWS Regional Director, has stated that the Program can not achieve ESA compliance with just "testing the assumption" for hydrology, but the FWS can provide ESA compliance if the Program commits to conducting monitoring and research to fill knowledge gaps. This information will allow a determination of what measures, if any, are needed in future increments. The issue of including pallid sturgeon as a target species in the Program was discussed briefly but it was noted that this was a policy issue for the GC to decide.
Steve Lydick, FWS, provided a brief overview of pallid sturgeon recovery priority management area four, which includes the lower Platte. The TC discussed how the Program's portion of work on pallid sturgeon could be separated from the entire amount of work needed in the lower Platte. It was agreed that this is a policy/political decision, but that there may be other parties subject to consultations in the lower Platte region that could contribute to the monitoring and research effort.
Concern was raised regarding the need to compare information on habitat use from wild fish to hatchery fish released in the late 1990's. This assumes that enough wild fish can be captured to conduct a statistically valid test. The issue then is, if enough wild fish are captured for this test there would not be the need to use information from hatchery fish. Dale noted that the confidence intervals on both the hatchery fish and wild fish will be very wide due to small sample sizes and it will be very difficult to reject the hypothesis that hatchery fish do not equal wild fish in most aspects of study. He pointed out that this increases the risk of a type II error (i.e., accepting a false hypothesis). The FWS suggested that if this analysis is not conducted they would suggest greater effort be expended to capture more wild fish because the overall idea is to use information from both wild and hatchery to increase sample size.
It was noted that the current monitoring and research list contains items not identified in the original R3-1 Data Needs Table. Paul Tebbel asked that any other technical comments be submitted to Steve Lydick via fax by noon on February 28, 2002.
IMRP
Clayton reviewed the sections that had been significantly modified since that last TC review in early 2001. It was noted that the other species of concern list and process for adding species to the list was not in the current IMRP. The Executive Director's office will review past minutes to determine what was decided regarding inclusion of this material and bring it back to the TC for consideration. The TC discussed briefly how information developed by the Parsons/EIS Team should be incorporated into the IMRP. Options include referencing or attaching the material. The TC asked that text be added to the IMRP describing the sediment/ vegetation principles from the GC workshop and the pallid sturgeon issue. Concern was raised that several sections within the IMRP are not complete (e.g., baseline portion) and that this should be done before the TC does extensive reviews. The TC agreed to review the portions that are completed to date and to keep working on the document as appropriate to insure timely completion before Program implementation.
Technical Advisory Committee Charter
Dale stated that the TC should begin work on the Program's Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) Charter. Guidance from the GC has been given regarding use of independent technical experts and the role they should play during the Program. In general, the GC agreed that Program committees would be advisory in nature and not as hands-on as Cooperative Agreement committees. The TC can utilize the current drafts of the FC and Land Advisory Committee charters to help draft the TAC charter. The charter should outline committee membership, relation to GC, relationship with other committees and staff, description of how the TAC will operate, and duties in Program activities including peer review and adaptive management. The Executive Director's office will draft a TAC charter before the next meeting. The FC and Land Advisory Committee charters will also be distributed as example Program committee charters.
February 26, 2002
Protocols
Whooping Crane Protocol
Data from protocol implementation in Fall 2001 has been input into the database and a draft report will be distributed by March 15. One crane was observed from the air, one time, near Rowe Sanctuary.
The FC and GC approved protocol implementation in Spring 2002. A notice of RFP availability was published in the Denver Post, Omaha World Herald, and Casper Star-Tribune. The RFP was also mailed to interested parties from 2001. A total of 15 RFP's were sent to interested bidders. One proposal was received and that was from AIM in Kearney, NE. The TC discussed concerns identified in the proposed budget and asked the Executive Director's office to work with AIM to address these concerns without increasing the total estimated budget. The TC expressed concern about quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) on the data collected by AIM. Dale noted that the Executive Director's office will sample the database at the end of the field work and compare against datasheets for QAQC. The TC discussed possible options to make monitoring and research more appealing to potential bidders during the Cooperative Agreement (e.g., bidding the spring and fall whooping crane monitoring as a package) and the level of effort expected from the Executive Director's Office during the Cooperative Agreement. The item will be included on a future agenda.
Dale stated that there is continued interest in evaluating FWS guidelines by monitoring and managing a variety of habitats in various ways (e.g., widen channels to 600 feet and actively manage as a habitat). The TC has chosen to use resource selection studies to investigate this issue. Current protocols allow resource selection/availability investigations at the macro level (e.g., vegetation, channel width) but not at the micro level (e.g., grain size, river stage). The FWS guidelines include both macro and micro level items. This could be considered a research component and added to the protocol. Besides identifying parameters to be studied, the area of interest (e.g., within 1/2-mile of use sites, 2-miles, entire river) needs to be defined before protocols can be written. This information should be captured in the "Description" column of the IMRP table of listed protocols and budgets. Dale suggested and the TC agreed that a resource selection workshop be held at the next TC meeting and that members of the GC be invited.
Fish Monitoring
The Fish Subgroup has identified research and monitoring ideas and they have also discussed several possible methods. Some of these methods need to be tested in the central Platte before protocols are drafted to insure that they are cost effective and practical. It was noted that the subgroup has described the general design, but issues remain regarding methods. A couple of options to further protocol development mentioned by Dale included having the Executive Director's office subcontract with a fisheries biologist to help write the protocol or to have fisheries biologists from cooperating agencies participate more directly in developing the protocol. Mike Fritz noted that he would contact personnel from the NGPC regarding their assistance in developing the protocol. The suggestion was made that individuals from cooperating agencies that assisted in Chadwick's study should be contacted for assistance.
The TC discussed where development of the fish monitoring protocol fit within the overall protocol development schedule. The point was raised that as a priority item, the fish monitoring protocol may not be as high as development of some of the geomorphology and in-channel vegetation protocols identified through the Parsons-EIS Team effort. These protocols will be very important for some parties before they can accept the Program. Dale asked that the TC review the long list of tasks identified by the Parsons-EIS Team and choose their top five priorities for development and possible implementation during the Cooperative Agreement or early in the Program. Priorities should be sent to Clayton by March 15. The past approach taken by the TC is to insure that monitoring protocols are developed by the start of the Program and that it is likely that some of the research protocols will be developed as part of the RFP to actually conduct the research.
Tern and Plover
The draft 2001 Tern and Plover Monitoring report was distributed as was a revised Tern and Plover Monitoring Protocol. The revised protocol contained changes suggested by the tern and plover subgroup. Comments on both documents were requested by March 22. The TC discussed how protocol implementation at sandpits between Gibbon and Odessa. Options include implementation by NGPC as a cooperator, Tern and Plover Conservation Group, a contractor, and the Executive Director's office. The TC agreed that the option of using the NGPC be explored. If the NGPC is unable to implement the protocol at these pits the TC asked that the Executive Director's office hire a person to implement this portion of the protocol.
Vegetation Monitoring at Cottonwood Ranch and Jeffrey Island
Shay Howlin explained that WEST, Inc., implemented the Program lands level and management specific portions of the vegetation monitoring described in the General Monitoring Protocol. The Program lands level monitoring was conducted under contract to CNPPID and the report is currently be reviewed by CNPPID. The management specific portion was conducted as an augmentation to the Executive Director's contract. Both reports will be distributed for review in April.
In-Channel Vegetation Monitoring
The TC still needs to work on developing the in-channel vegetation monitoring protocol with the understanding the research will likely be covered under tasks identified by the Parsons-EIS Team. The subgroup was asked to continue working on the monitoring protocol.
Database
Dale and Ryan Neilson are continuing to work on a draft database protocol. The first draft should be distributed in mid-March for discussion at the April meeting.
R1-1 Baseline Document
A draft Whooping Crane section of the Baseline Document being developed by the Executive Director's office for the TC was distributed electronically prior to the meeting. The TC agreed to review the draft section and provide comments to Clayton by March 22.
Rick Brown explained that he is providing comments to his Drafting Committee representative on wording regarding the baseline issue for inclusion in the Program document. The original language was carried over from the Cooperative Agreement. It has been suggested that the wording in the Program document briefly discuss what the baseline actually contains, not what was hoped it would contain, now that all parties are realizing that there is not a significant amount of quantitative data for a before/after type analysis of the Program.
Peer Review Work Plan
A Peer Review Work Plan identifying items for peer review and timetable is needed for the remainder of the Cooperative Agreement as well as the Program. The TC decided to recommend to the GC that the IMRP be peer reviewed approximately in April of 2003. It was noted that several items identified in the Cooperative Agreement needing peer review have not been reviewed and that it now appears that some Cooperative Agreement parties do not want them peer reviewed. The Executive Director's office will review the Cooperative Agreement and identify those items specifically identified and request that the GC formally decide if they should be reviewed.
Future Meetings
1-5 p.m., April 17, 2002 - TC meeting, Crystal Inn, Denver
8 a.m. - 12 p.m., April 18, 2002 - TC/GC resource selection workshop, Crystal Inn, Denver
For further information, contact the Technical Committee chair
For further information about the Partnership,
contact any Governance Committee member.For comments and questions about this website, please email Buck Feist or call 406-247-7607