Related link: Presentation at February 2004 Council meeting
This ISAB and ISRP review was requested by NOAA Fisheries and the Council in September 2003. The draft RME Plan was developed jointly by staff from NOAA Fisheries, the Bonneville Power Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Bureau of Reclamation, and is designed to help implement the NOAA Fisheries 2000 Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS) Biological Opinion (BiOp) and the Federal Caucus Basinwide Salmon Recovery Strategy. The purpose of the RME Plan is to initiate and coordinate a process for evaluating the status of affected stocks of ESA listed anadromous salmonids and the effectiveness of mitigation and conservation actions.
The ISAB and ISRP found the draft RME Plan to be well organized and quite comprehensive overall. It represents an excellent start, and its authors should be commended for their work. It has broad applicability and should be instructive to all practitioners. However, the ISAB and ISRP review identifies some large contextual questions that would likely limit the effectiveness of the Plan, independently of how well it addresses the smaller issues. The ISAB and ISRP review provides general recommendations and detailed comments to improve the draft RME Plan that should be addressed by the RME group as they finalize the plan.
