55 



Should l he Fish and Wildlife Foundation remain the 

 vehicle for distributing aquatic restoration funds, the bill before us 

 needs lo add language recognizing the needs of community groups 

 which seem to be, but arc not, peripheral to on-thc-ground projects. 

 There needs to be ample support for the forementloned planning and 

 for project development at the local levef. Staffing for volunteer 

 coordination will pay for itself many times over. Monitoring and 

 evaluation must be provided for at the functional local level as well 

 as at the centralized oversight level. This provides a feedback loop 

 that allows restoration workers to evaluate and improve their own 

 strategies as the work proceeds. Unless we provide for educational 

 increments at the level of local primary and secondary schools, how 

 can we hope to recruit the new energies that will be required to 

 maintain our work in the long term? The existence of real overhead 

 costs at the local level needs to be recognized., 'Fhe present low 

 c eiling on overhead costs would probably not be adequate even if it 

 were all directed to the local level; experience shows that this 

 provision is likely to be drained off by a more remote level of 

 administration. 



These comments are presented out of a conviction that 

 we should move ahead rapidly to implement the goals of H.K. 4481. 

 My concerns were developed in consultation with other watershed 

 councils, a natural resource employment agency, and fisherman's 

 organizations In northern California, and I found their concerns to be 

 remarkably uniform. There is a sense of excitement over the 

 development of a national strategy for the restoration of aquatic 

 ecosystems, and a quiet anxiety about our ability to implement It. I'd 

 like to congratulate the sponsors of this bill for the audacious and 

 epoch-making quality of their intention — and to wish you ail the 

 best of luck in inventing forms which will demonstrate those 

 intentions in the thriving, healthy streams and waterways of North 

 America. 



