5. Harvest management must support rebuilding. 



6. System integration will be necessary to assure consistency. 



7. Adaptive management should guide actions and improve knowledge. 



To plan the actions needed to meet the interim goal, the Council established a basinwide process 

 termed System Planning (Section 205). System Planning is an effort under the lead of the fish agencies 

 and tribes to plan fisheries actions in 31 subbasins of the Columbia River. It includes, first of all, 

 planning at the subbasin level to identify fish production objectives, constraints and opportunities. 

 Secondly, it involves integrating these subbasin plans into an overall system plan to meet the doubling 

 goal while maintaining consistency with the Council's policies. 



Section 206(d) of the fish and wildlife program states that the System Monitoring and Evaluation 

 Program is intended to follow the progress of the system plan in meeting the Council's goal and its 

 consistency with the Council's policies. Such a program could fulfill two functions. First, SMEP could 

 provide a link between the expenditure of ratepayer dollars and the Council's charge to "protect, 

 mitigate and enhance" the fishery resource. The fish and wildlife program represents a sizeable 

 expenditure by the Northwest ratepayers through the Bonneville Power Administration. SMEP could 

 provide a measure of the progress achieved with these funds. Second, SMEP could provide a means 

 of dealing with the uncertainty associated with the best means of achieving the mandate of the Power 

 Act, The Act recognized the uncertainty but called on the Council to take positive action. A major 

 funqtion of a system-wide monitoring program would be to provide the necessary feedback to the 

 Council and the region so that, over time, the program could become a refined vehicle for achieving 

 the Council's goals. 



The program states that the Monitoring and Evaluation Program is to incorporate the following 

 features (206(d) (2) (A-F)): 



1 . "Development of alternative means to assess progress toward achieving the goal of doubling the 

 runs of salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River Basin, consistent with the (program) policies 



2. "Evaluation of research results and reporting on implications for program objectives"; 



3. "Development of a coordinated information system designed to facilitate effective exchange and 

 dissemination of fisheries data"; 



4. "Maintenance of the system planning model, including documentation, recommended standards 

 for use, and modifications'.'; 



5. "Integration with the system planning activities . . ."; and, 



6. "Examination of quantitative methods to incorporate genetic conservation into production 

 planning." 



The initial issue in the development of the SMEP is the method of assessing progress. The choice 

 of a measure will largely depend on the question asked of a monitoring program and the amount of 

 information that the Council desires to obtain from a measure of progress; the ultimate size of the 

 monitoring program will depend on the degree of resolution that is desired. The next section of this 

 report will include a discussion of alternative means of measuring progress and MEG's 

 recommendation regarding the best course of action. This will be followed by a description of the 

 actions MEG feels are necessary for implementing this recommendation. 



