A short-term deferral (less than one year) could give the Council more time to analyze the 

 complex wildlife policy issues raised in this paper. During this time period, the Council could 

 sponsor a series of regional workshops, round tables or consultations with the affected parties. 

 The Council also could use its authority to establish a technical and/or policy-level advisory 

 committee to discuss and forward wildlife recommendations to the Council. In the interim, the 

 Council could approve priority wildlife projects identified in the mitigation proposals. Alternatively, 

 current mitigation proposals could be held until the wildlife policy issues are resolved. 



Second, the Council could consider a longer-term deferral until all wildlife mitigation planning 

 for the federal hydroelectric facilities in the basin are complete. This would allow the Council to 

 review the full scope of the basin's wildlife proposals before taking action. 



issues 



Obviously, an advantage of deferring action would be to give the Council added time to 

 deliberate on these issues. However, there are disadvantages. First, some of the wildlife mitigation 

 proposals have been pending for nearly two years. Deferral of action may be interpreted as 

 affording wildlife mitigation a low priority. 



Further, since a short-term deferral places the agencies and tribes in a holding pattern for 

 implementing measures at Grand Coulee, the Willamette Basin, Palisades, Anderson Ranch and 

 Black Canyon dams, the agencies and tribes are likely to oppose it. In addition, it is uncertain that 

 deferral will result in consensus on wildlife issues, as many of the issues have been debated for 

 some time. 



Waiting until all wildlife mitigation proposals are complete before making a decision on the 

 pending proposals would result in a delay of at least two years. Several wildlife planning 

 documents (loss statements/ mitigation proposals) for other hydroelectric projects in the basin are 

 not scheduled to begin until late this fiscal year or next. It is possible that the time needed to 

 complete these proposals fully could be as much as three years. Should the Council choose to 

 defer action, it might be useful to provide additional guidance for the completion of the plans at the 

 remaining hydroelectric facilities in the basin. 



Alternative 4. Define the boundaries of the wildlife program by a specified program level of 

 effort and pace implementation for approved mitigation proposals over an appropriate time 

 period. 



Approach 



The Council might decide to pace the implementation of wildlife mitigation projects through a 

 program level of effort approach. That is, the Council could determine a level of wildlife funding 

 that Bonneville or others "can be expected" to fund over a given number of years. Various 

 alternatives could be used to implement this approach: 



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