FY 2000 proposal 20543

Section 1. Administrative

Project location

Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives (RPAs)

Section 2. Past accomplishments

Section 3. Relationships to other projects

Section 4. Budget for Planning and Design phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Planning and Design phase

Section 5. Budget for Construction and Implementation phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Construction and Implementation phase

Section 6. Budget for Operations and Maintenance phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Operations and Maintenance phase

Section 7. Budget for Monitoring and Evaluation phase

Task-based budget

Outyear objectives-based budget

Outyear budgets for Monitoring and Evaluation phase

Section 8. Estimated budget summary

Itemized budget

Total estimated budget

Cost sharing

Other budget explanation

Schedule Constraints: Production and release of hatchery salmonids in the Columbia Basin is regulated by NMFS under ESA. Specific groups depend on funding for the production and tagging of hatchery salmon in Washington and Oregon and for the sampling for tagged fish.

Reviews and recommendations

This information was not provided on the original proposals, but was generated during the review process.

Comment:

Comments: The coded-wire tag (CWT) program is fundamental to the management of chinook and coho salmon coast-wide. Before the development of the CWT, catches of specific stocks were unknown and sustainable exploitation rates of stocks could not be assessed (other than by the trend in their spawning escapements). Trends in spawning abundance may result, however, from over-exploitation or decreased survival. The development of the CWT program and the establishment of a coast-wide recovery program allowed for the development of quantitative assessments of life history statistics for chinook, coho, and steelhead. As noted in the proposal, this tool allows estimation of catch and age distributions in fisheries, exploitation rates by fishery, and estimation of annual marine survival rates. By the early 1980's, the CWT had become an essential tool for stock assessment and management (including hatchery assessments), and research.

As this umbrella proposal describes, the program requires two components: tagging of representative groups of fish (by species, stock, brood year, etc.), and recovery of the tags in fisheries and spawning escapements. In the mid-1970's, a coast-wide agreement requested all recovery agencies to sample 20% of commercial salmon catches for the recovery of CWT. While this percentage was not based on any statistical principle, it has been adopted as the "standard" rate of sampling in catches. As in any mark-recapture program, however, the rates of tagging and recovery should be dependent on the objective of the program. Consequently, the CWT programs under this umbrella proposal are advised to review the "30 observed recoveries" guideline that is quoted. That value was determined during a period of good marine survival and well supported sampling programs. During periods of poor marine survival and/or reduced sampling (due to budget constraints), agencies would be well advised to increase the numbers of tags released, depending on the accuracy and precision desired in their programs.

The rationale for this proposal is to provide comprehensive stock assessment and hatchery production monitoring to regional management entities and all researchers. The integration of tagging plans to ensure "representative" coverage each year is a major advancement that will substantially improve long-term assessments in the basin. As noted above, a related task maybe to develop a mark-recapture design model which determines the numbers of marks to release given data on projected survival rates, sampling rates and costs, and objectives of the programs.

The reviewers identified three concerns about this umbrella proposal:

1. This proposal requests $2.75 x 10^6 (although the budget form says "see individual projects"); however, the amounts listed in the individual projects are less in total. Further, the Cost Sharing summary in the umbrella proposal is not consistent with the summary in the Recovery proposal.

2. The cost of the umbrella organization is not identified separately from the individual programs. Does this explain the cost difference identified above or is there no related costs for this organizational work, etc? These could be important functions and should be identified as managerial costs of the Regional program.

3. It is impossible to place tagging requests in context of the CWT program since we are only notified of the requests of additional tagging. How can this be examined in a technical context without a comprehensive description of the supported tagging programs and related objectives? Do the current tagging programs address all regional concerns, or are the best tagging programs being supported, etc.?

While the umbrella proposal is a useful approach, the clarity of presentation would be dramatically enhanced by the use of a flow chart or other device to visually depict overall program structure and how subprograms fit into that structure, overall budget, etc. Sub-proposals should not repeat the language and information contained in the umbrella proposal. Two sub-proposals should be adequate, one for catch estimation and recovery programs and the other for tagging. The latter should put requests for future tagging in the context of regional marking priorities (CWT and PIT tags) and collate all additional tagging requesting support from BPA. Contract managers could allocate budgets for individual agencies.

Programmatic: The entire CWT program needs a programmatic review at regular intervals to confirm priorities and efficacy. We strongly recommend a technical/peer review to confirm the validity of the critical assumptions (e.g. current adequacy of the 20% sampling rate goal, and 30 tag recoveries per group, adequacy of using hatchery stocks as surrogates for monitoring wild stocks). Other key assumptions also need to be verified: 1) marked (CWT) fish suffer the same natural mortality as unmarked fish, and 2) marked fish do not lose their marks. Further, an ongoing advisory position in statistics is recommended for the "umbrella" organization. This position could improve the technical basis of our information and possibly pay for itself through optimization of programs. It is also recommended that the "CWT Oversight Committee" determine "standard" cost guidelines for CWT marking and recovery, and approve annual departures from these guidelines based on local program requirements, and possible manage the actual purchase of tags to avoid the overhead imposed by the agencies. Otherwise reviewers of proposals cannot comment on budgets without much more detailed information. For example, we note several different charges for overhead, including on the simple purchase of CWT?

Comment:

Comment:

Comment:

Programmatic Criteria 2: Met? NA -

Milestone Criteria 3: Met? NA - Some concern expressed regarding the timelines associated with data entry.

Resource Criteria 4: Met? NA -