STATE
OF WASHINGTON
Kenneth P. Currens, PhD Hiram W. Li, PhD John D. McIntyre, PhD Dudley W. Reiser, PhD
INDEPENDENT SCIENCE PANEL
David
R. Montgomery, PhD
PO Box 43135
Olympia, Washington
98504-3135
(360) 902-2216 FAX
(360) 902-2215
December
26, 2000
The
Honorable Gary Locke The
Honorable Frank Chopp
Governor
of Washington Co-Speaker
of the House
PO
Box 40002 324
15th Avenue East, Suite 103
Olympia, WA 98504-0002 Seattle, WA 98112
The
Honorable Sid Snyder The
Honorable Clyde Ballard
Majority
Leader of the Senate Co-Speaker
of the House
PO Box 40482 PO
Box 40600
Olympia,
WA 98504-0482 Olympia,
WA 98504-0600
Dear
Governor Locke, Senator Snyder, and Representatives Chopp and Ballard:
The
Independent Science Panel (Panel) was created by the Legislature in 1998 to
provide scientific oversight of Washington’s salmon, steelhead, and trout
recovery efforts. Per RCW 77.85.040, the Legislature required that the Panel
submit a report on salmon monitoring to the Governor and the Legislature by
December 31, 2000. This letter and the enclosed report are being sent to you in
fulfillment of that obligation.
The
Legislation asked the Panel to make recommendations on the following:
·
Standardized
monitoring indicators and data quality guidelines for use by entities involved
in habitat projects and salmon recovery activities across the state,
·
Criteria
for the systematic and periodic evaluation of monitoring data in order for the
state to be able to answer critical questions about the effectiveness of the
state’s salmon recovery efforts,
·
The
level of effort needed to sustain monitoring of salmon projects and other
recovery efforts, and
·
Any
other recommendations on monitoring deemed important by the Panel.
We
consider the development and implementation of a comprehensive statewide
monitoring program to be of central importance to salmon recovery in Washington
State. If adaptive management is to be credibly and successfully applied, it
will need the strong scientific backbone that a comprehensive monitoring
program can provide.
As
we wrote in our comments on the Statewide Strategy to Recover Salmon (Strategy)
in May of this year, most of the concepts and steps outlined in the Strategy’s
monitoring chapter were scientifically sound and provide a reasonable
foundation for further development. In
the current report, we elaborate on the critical elements needed for developing
a comprehensive statewide recovery monitoring program.
We
believe that the principal purpose of monitoring is to help make decisions by
reducing uncertainty and tracking progress towards recovery. Many programs
already monitor indicators relevant to salmon, but the efforts are largely
uncoordinated or unlinked among programs, have different objectives, use
different indicators, and lack support for sharing data. Existing programs lack shared statistical
designs to address specific issues raised by listing of species under the
Endangered Species Act (ESA).
We
recommend that a comprehensive statewide monitoring program be developed with
the following eight characteristics to be scientifically credible:
·
Goals,
objectives, and questions that need to be addressed must be clearly
articulated.
·
Statistical
designs need to be appropriate to the objectives.
·
Indicators
and variables need to be defined by objectives and the appropriate
geographical, temporal, biological scales.
·
Sampling
protocols, consistent with design needs, need to be standardized to allow
comparison among locations, times, or programs.
·
Procedures
need to be developed to ensure quality assurance and quality control of all
data used to monitor salmon recovery and recovery actions.
·
Data
management systems need to allow easy access, sharing, and coordination among
different collectors and users.
·
Funding
needs to be stable and adequate. Monitoring will depend on the degree to which
decision-makers wish to be certain that management actions are having an
anticipated response.
·
Decision
support systems need to help integrate monitoring information into
decision-making.
Based
on our review, we believe that to provide a scientifically sound adaptive
management framework, existing programs either need to be: (1) significantly
changed, coordinated, and supplemented with new program elements to achieve a
comprehensive monitoring program, or (2) a new program must be developed that
adequately treats recovery actions as a large, consolidated experiment. Both of these will require increased and
stable levels of funding and policy commitments.
We
are encouraged by the state’s interest in monitoring. We hope the enclosed report will be of value as issues associated
with salmon recovery monitoring are debated in the days and months to come.
The
challenge of salmon recovery remains enormous. Nothing about it is easy.
However, establishing long-term systems that allow us to monitor our progress,
detect our successes, and learn from our mistakes will help us all be more
effective and confident in our decisions affecting the uncertain world we and
the salmon call home.
If
any aspects of these recommendations need clarification please contact us.
Sincerely,
Kenneth
P. Currens, Chair
Independent
Science Panel
Enclosure
cc: Senator Rasmussen, Chair, Senate Agriculture and Rural
Economic Development Committee
Senator Fraser, Chair,
Senate Environmental Quality and Water Resources Committee
Senator Jacobsen,
Chair, Senate Natural Resources, Parks, and Recreation Committee
Representatives
Chandler and Linville, Co-Chairs, House Agriculture and Ecology Committee
Representatives Buck
and Regala, Co-Chairs, House Natural Resources Committee