Dear Interested Party:
The Council invites your review and comment on this summary concerning project costs for the wildlife portion of the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Program.
In the Council’s project-funding recommendations to Bonneville for Fiscal Years 2007-2009 (adopted in November 2006), the Council agreed to undertake a review of the operation and maintenance activities and costs in the program. The Council has decided to focus initially on the operation and maintenance activities and costs related to lands acquired for wildlife mitigation. This is the first time the Council and Bonneville have undertaken a detailed review to determine appropriate operation and maintenance activities and funding levels for land acquired to mitigate for the loss of wildlife because of the construction of the Columbia River Basin dams.
As part of this review, Bonneville staff prepared a summary of wildlife project budget information (see above link), based on data gathered for Bonneville’s “PISCES” project and contract management software.
The Council is particularly seeking comment on the utility of the project budget information in the PISCES database for the comprehensive wildlife land operations and maintenance review the Council has in mind. The Council has asked its Independent Economic Advisory Board to help the Council in this review. Questions the Council is asking the IEAB include whether the PISCES data will be useful in helping the Council fulfill its obligation to determine if the projects are using cost-effective means to meet project and program objectives, and if there are ways to standardize operations and maintenance costs for similar activities, even if the characteristics of land parcels are also different. The Council welcomes the assistance of commenters in determining what data and methods of analysis would be most helpful in making these judgments about wildlife land operation and maintenance costs and whether the PISCES data can play this role. We also are interested in any recommendations you may have about how the PISCES data might be improved in the future. We would especially welcome information that improves the accuracy of the acreage information in the table.
Thank you for your interest in the Council’s Fish and Wildlife Program.
Sincerely,
Stephen L. Crow, Executive Director