Implementation 

 Provisions m 



T 



his section contains the 

 administrative pro\ isions for 

 the program. 



A. Project 



Implementation, 

 Project 

 Selection and 

 Management 



Because this program involves 

 hundreds of projects and many 

 millions of dollars per year in fund- 

 ing, an orderly process is needed 

 to decide which projects should be 

 funded and to administer these deci- 

 sions once they are made. This sec- 

 tion describes that process. 



The procedures for implementing 

 this program should ensure that plan- 

 ning results in on-the-ground actions, 

 and that those actions feed infomia- 

 tion about their results back to the 

 region to guide future decisions. The 

 Council will use the procedures in 

 this section to integrate Bonneville 

 funding for this program with Endan- 

 gered Species Act requirements and 

 the collaborating programs of the 

 states, tribes and federal and local 

 governments. This section also 

 incorporates the strides made in 

 recent years to define improved 

 selection and management practices 

 for fiscal accountability and 

 improved information about regional 

 fish and wildlife efforts. 



This section is intended to outline 

 the essentials of the project selection 

 process. A more detailed description 

 is included in the Technical Appendix. 



1. Deadlines for Reports 



A number of the strategies in this 

 program call for certain reports to 

 be prepared on an annual or biennial 

 basis. The Council will consult with 

 the parties involved in preparation of 

 these reports to establish the most 

 appropriate time of the year for com- 



or 

 „ „.jt 



th. 



ir' 



pletion of each report. Following 

 approval by the Council, these dead- 

 lines will be recorded in the Tech- 

 nical Appendix. Deadlines estab- 

 lished for these reports are subject 

 to change by mutual agreement 

 between the Council and the report- 

 ing parties. Unless otherwise indi- 

 cated, all reports are due beginning in 

 calendar year 2002. 



2. Project Selection — Basic 

 Requirements and Roles 



While the Council has always 

 been involved in efforts to ensure that 

 the program it adopts is being imple- 

 mented ctTectively, Congress gave the 

 Council an increased and explicit role 

 in program implementation in a 1996 

 amendment to the Power Act. The 

 Act now charges the Council, with 

 the assistance of the Independent Sci- 

 entific Review Panel, to make annual 

 recommendations to Bonneville on 

 projects to be funded through the 

 Bonneville fish and wildlife budget to 

 implement the program. 



The Power Act specifies certain 

 standards and minimum procedures 

 for the project review process, but 

 otherwise al'ibrds the Council broad 

 discretion to deline the procedures 



for conducting project review and 

 selection. The processes outlined 

 below describe the statutory require- 

 ments and the particular approach 

 that the Council intends to use for the 

 foreseeable future to address these 

 requirements and implement the pro- 

 gram. The Council will continue 

 to refine and modify program imple- 

 mentation measures it finds necessary 

 to best accomplish the fish and wild- 

 life purposes of the Act. 



In 1998, the U.S. Congress' 

 Senate-House conference report on 

 the Fiscal Year 1999 Energy and 

 Water Development Appropriations 

 bill directed the Council, again with 

 the assistance of the Independent Sci- 

 entific Review Panel, to also review 

 on an annual basis the fish and wild- 

 life projects, programs, or measures 

 included in federal agency budgets 

 that are reimbursed by Bonneville 

 (the "reimbursable programs"). The 

 four major components of the reim- 

 bursable program include the Colum- 

 bia River Fisheries Mitigation Pro- 

 gram (Corps of Engineers); Fish 

 and Wildlife Operations and Mainte- 

 nance Budget (Coips of Engineers); 

 Lower Snake River Compensation 

 Plan (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser- 

 vice); and the Leavenworth Hatchery 

 (Bureau of Reclamation). It is the 

 Council's intent to integrate to the 

 maximum extent possible the review 

 of these reimbursable programs with 

 the review of the projects funded by 

 Bonneville to implement the Coun- 

 cil's program. 



Fast Fact 



(^ oliniihia River Basin resi- 

 dent Jisli. which spend tlieir 

 entire life cycle in freshwater, 

 include: warm-water species, 

 hass and walleve: and iold- 

 water species, cutthroat, bull 

 trout and kokanee. '^ 

 ^■^^ 



2000 



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