ESA Executive Committee Charge
The Executive Committee was charged with coordinating species recovery on the mainstem lower Columbia River specifically by working to get on-the-ground projects underway. The Committee is focused on the following tasks:
- Make recommendations to the Board of Directors on how the Management Plan can be adjusted to more closely align with the BiOp. Timeframe: immediate.
- Identify specific actions and timelines that can be undertaken in the next five to ten years. (These are to be actions that all parties can agree on now without need for further research or study and that parties concur would help advance species recovery.)
- Identify funding sources for individual actions and work with the Board of Directors to direct funds to those actions. Timeframe for items 2 and 3: August 2001 forward.
- Identify the needs of local governments in meeting ESA requirements and make recommendations to the Board of Directors on how to help meet those needs.
- Identify what is needed for salmonid recovery. This long term process will involve many parties. Timeframe for items 4 and 5 to be determined.
While salmon recovery was the primary reason for the establishment of this coordination effort, participants agreed that this effort would not be at the expense of other species. Rather, other species’ recovery efforts should be integrated into this framework. In discussing its role and value added to efforts in the lower river, the Executive Committee confirmed that one of its strengths is that we bring an ecosystem view, working with salmon as well as other species and habitat restoration of the system. The Committee also links ESA efforts more directly to the estuary and mainstem. The ESA Committee, like the Estuary Partnership can also help acknowledge and strengthen sub-regional efforts and tie them together. Like the Estuary Partnership, the ESA Committee fills an important role of convener and coordinator and a link to other agencies and organizations working on related projects. The group acknowledged that it works at two levels: short term, fixed on more immediate on-the-ground action in the lower Columbia River and estuary; and longer term, dependent on larger investment of funds; more definition about what recovery standards are; and some additional research and data.
Progress to Date
The Committee formed in January 2001 and met sometimes monthly intitially, then quarterly.
Task 1: Aligning the Management Plan and the Biological Opinion. Completed July 19, 2001
Tasks 2 and 3: Identify specific actions and timelines and work to secure funding to implement on-the-ground actions without further research. On-going.
- the ESA Committee developed a master list of projects as an initial listing of priority projects for habitat preservation and restoration for the Lower Columbia River mainstem and estuary. The Estuary Partnership now maintains that list and works to make the list as inclusive as possible. The list of projects employs the habitat criteria developed by the Estuary Partnership Science work group and takes advantage of existing opportunities for preservation and restoration, including projects on federally owned or managed land. The Estuary Partnership is now developing with its partners a Strategic Prioritization plan for habitat restoration to ensure that we all invest funds in projects and sites that will yield the most.
- Funding. The Estuary Partnership has assumed primary responsibility for matching funds to projects on the list and other projects solicited through request for proposals when funding is available. The Estuary Partnership has worked to secure several large sources of funds for the region; we award funds to partners to complete habitat restoration projects. In 2000, Congress authorized in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 $30 million to the Army Corps of Engineers to implement the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership and Tillamook Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan. Congress has appropriated funds since 2003.
Task 4: Identify the needs of local government with their recovery efforts and make
recommendations to the Estuary Partnership Board on how to help. The Estuary Partnership held several forums and met informally with local governments and local watershed councils during 2000 and 2001: Working to bring local government interests to forefront.
Task 5: Identify what is needed for salmon and steelhead recovery. SubBasin Planning and NMFS Phase 2 Recovery.