IEAB Independent Economic

Analysis Board

Kenneth L. Casavant, Chair 

Roger Mann, Vice-Chair 

Joel R. Hamilton

Daniel D. Huppert

Noelwah R. Netusil

Lon L. Peters

Susan S. Hanna

Hans Radtke

April, 2003

Application of the IEAB's Recommendations and Guidance for Economic 

Analysis in Subbasin Planning

to the Clearwater Subbasin Management Plan

Introduction

This paper is being provided for two purposes; 1) to suggest improvements related to 

economic content of the draft Clearwater Subbasin Management Plan (the draft 

Clearwater Plan), and 2) to help subbasin planners understand and implement suggestions 

provided in the Independent Economic Analysis Board's (IEAB) Recommendations and 

Guidance for Economic Analysis in Subbasin Planning (Economic Recommendations) by 

reference to the draft Clearwater Plan.

The draft Clearwater Plan was released before the Economic Recommendations were 

developed. Therefore, our suggestions should not be taken as criticism of the Clearwater 

Plan. Rather, we take this opportunity to suggest improvements in the draft plan related to 

economics, and we use the Clearwater Assessment and Plan as points of departure to 

show how the Economic Recommendations might be implemented. The Clearwater 

Assessment does include some socioeconomic information, and this information can be 

used as a basis for suggestions on how to make such economic information more useful 

to planners and the Council. 

The IEAB has reviewed the Independent Science Review Panel's (ISRP) "Review of the 

Draft Clearwater Subbasin Plan." This paper builds on the ISRP review by showing how 

some of the ISRP recommendations are closely related to economic as well as biological 

concerns.

In summary, the Clearwater Subbasin Plan did not progress far enough to allow for 

meaningful economic analysis and interpretation of recommended actions as 

contemplated by the IEAB in the Economic Recommendations. In particular, 

recommendations for specific habitat and hatchery actions are not provided.1 Instead, the 

Clearwater Management Plan is focused on general goals and objectives. The Inventory 

provides a detailed list of ongoing projects in the region, but the Management Plan does 

not provide enough information about future priorities to suggest how future projects 

might be different from the status quo. The IEAB believes that more evaluation and 

bundling of ongoing, proposed and potential projects as examples of strategies and 

actions could focus a revised Clearwater subbasin plan and future subbasin planning 

 

1 Most potential hydrosystem and harvest actions are not within the subbasin, so they 

were not evaluated by the Plan.
IEAB Independent Economic

Analysis Board

Kenneth L. Casavant, Chair 

Roger Mann, Vice-Chair 

Joel R. Hamilton

Daniel D. Huppert

Noelwah R. Netusil

Lon L. Peters

Susan S. Hanna

Hans Radtke

efforts. This approach would also be more likely to provide opportunities for economic 

impact and cost-effectiveness analysis.

The Technical Guide for Subbasin Planners (the Technical Guide) is not mandatory. 

Given flexibility, a variety of interpretations for plan requirements, focus of effort, key 

terminologies, and methodologies for prioritizing actions may be adopted. Such 

variations among subbasin plans will not be helpful for the Council, because ultimately 

decisions will have to be made that cut across subbasins. A focus on ongoing, proposed 

and potential projects would focus limited planning resources on the most immediate and 

likely actions and their effects.

The Economic Recommendations are provided below with the associated sections of the 

Clearwater Plan identified. The Clearwater Plan information is discussed, and related 

ISRP comments are mentioned if relevant. Changes are suggested that would improve the 

usefulness of the economic information. Again, the Clearwater Plan should not be faulted 

if its economic information could be improved, because the authors did not have the 

Economic Recommendations available when the Plan was developed. Rather, this 

evaluation by the IEAB is intended to help improve the Management Plan as it moves 

from the current draft to the final version.

Scoping Economic Impacts

IEAB Recommendation #1. Economic impacts should be scoped during the public 

involvement process

The Council's Technical Guide for Subbasin Planners (2001) states that "Subbasin Plans 

will be developed locally and in collaboration with fish and wildlife managers, local 

governments, interest groups and stakeholders and other state and federal land and water 

resources managers" (p. i.). The ISRP found that "Development of the. . . Plan is laudable 

for several reasons. . . b) the Policy Advisory Committee (PAC) brought diverse public 

and private interests together for subbasin planning." 

Appendix C of the Clearwater Management Plan documents the public and government 

participation plan. Phase 1 of public participation "reconnoitered how the proposed 

philosophy behind the Clearwater Subbasin Plan coincides with the public philosophy." 

Phase 2 was designed to report on progress, and Phase 3 was to collect comments on the 

final draft.

A compilation of comments from Phase 1 meetings shows that many were related to 

economics. Some comments expressed a desire for more diversified or natural resource 

based economic opportunities. Other comments were focused on natural resources of 

local value such as salmon and elk. However, it appears that specific actions were not 

discussed during the Phase 1 meetings. Therefore, comments about economic impacts of 

actions were not obtained. Documentation of comments from later public meetings is not 
IEAB Independent Economic

Analysis Board

Kenneth L. Casavant, Chair 

Roger Mann, Vice-Chair 

Joel R. Hamilton

Daniel D. Huppert

Noelwah R. Netusil

Lon L. Peters

Susan S. Hanna

Hans Radtke

provided, so we have no information on what was said about economic impacts beyond 

the first meeting. 

However, as discussed below, it appears that much of this plan and the planning process 

were focused on background information and general concepts, objectives and strategies, 

rather than specific planning for actions or projects. If the process were more actionoriented, the types of comments received might be different.

Economic Information in the Subbasin Assessment

IEAB Recommendation #2. The IEAB recommends that the Assessment section of each 

subbasin plan briefly describe the relationships between stakeholders and the potentially 

affected natural resources, including the economic dimension of these relationships. 

Section 3.10 (Population and Land Uses) of the Clearwater Subbasin Assessment 

provides discussion organized into subsections on demographics, urban development, 

recreation, roads, timber, agriculture, grazing and mining. Tables and maps show land 

use and ownership, population, timber harvest, indicators of agricultural production, and 

distribution of grazing activities. Data are provided on recreational fishing, development 

patterns, and road construction. 

This section is generally useful. However, the discussion tends to focus on the adverse 

impacts of human activities rather than the economic importance of them. The first focus 

is useful, but the latter is equally relevant. In particular, it would be useful to name and 

discuss the communities and stakeholder groups in the region in terms of their unique 

relationships to natural resources. For example, the fact that Lewiston is a port town is 

not mentioned. The industries in Lewiston that depend on barge transportation and 

natural resources should be mentioned and the economic importance of these activities 

quantified or at least discussed. For other communities, recreation, agricultural, forest 

products and mining interests should be discussed. All of this information could be 

provided within the current report organization. Alternatively, information might be 

provided as a one or two-page table, where each row would summarize the economic 

relationships between a community or stakeholder and the region's natural resources. 

Economic data such as employment, value of sales by industry, wage and salary 

payments, and other personal income are generally not available at the community level. 

However, the assessment could display the amount and share of county economic activity 

(employment, perhaps) in natural resource industries such as forestry, agriculture and 

mining. The draft Clearwater Assessment provides data on "indicators of agricultural 

production" (Table 22, page 82), none of which are measured in employment or dollar 

terms. Economic data by industry are available from the Regional Economic Information 

System. Detailed data on agricultural activity are available from the U.S. Agricultural 

Census or county sources. Also, regarding Table 22, it would be useful to disaggregate 

crop production acreage into irrigated and non-irrigated land.
IEAB Independent Economic

Analysis Board

Kenneth L. Casavant, Chair 

Roger Mann, Vice-Chair 

Joel R. Hamilton

Daniel D. Huppert

Noelwah R. Netusil

Lon L. Peters

Susan S. Hanna

Hans Radtke

The Assessment Section of the Clearwater Plan is approximately 450 pages with a fourpage Table of Contents. The Technical Guide provides a half-page outline. The IEAB is 

concerned that future subbasin planning efforts will not have the funds available to both 

develop a detailed assessment and conduct the actual analysis needed to develop a 

management plan. Better guidance may be needed to prioritize the types of information to 

be collected and presented in a subbasin assessment. 

Recommendations Related to Economic Impacts in the Management Plan

IEAB Recommendation #3. The IEAB recommends that each management plan include a 

general description of the adverse and beneficial economic impacts of proposed actions. 

More detailed analysis, including quantitative analysis, may be justified if specific 

projects are proposed. 

IEAB Recommendation #4. Strategy development should consider and reduce adverse 

stakeholder impacts while achieving beneficial improvements for fish and wildlife. 

Subbasin plans should include proposals to compensate those who suffer adverse 

economic impacts either through direct payments or countervailing benefits from other 

program elements. Cost-sharing with stakeholders who benefit from the plan should be 

included where feasible.

These two recommendations suggest that a subbasin management plan should evaluate 

economic impacts and be sensitive to these impacts in formulating strategies. 

Unfortunately, the Clearwater Management Plan did not progress to the point where such 

evaluation would be possible. Generally, the Plan does not specify strategies or actions in 

enough detail to develop a basis for predicting economic impacts.

The Plan does exhibit a concern for economics. For example, "Social, economic and 

political factors in the Clearwater basin are important considerations. Accounting for the 

human component will increase the probability that this plan will be successfully 

implemented" (Page 7). 

Two specific clarifications to the Management Plan regarding economics are suggested.

1. The IEAB is concerned about the opening statement in the Preamble of the 

Management Plan, which concludes that fish returns in 2001 yielded $24 million in direct 

expenditures by anglers in the subbasin. This conclusion is undocumented, and it may be 

misleading. With 61,000 angler trips, expenditure per trip would be about $400, but catch 

per trip was only 0.4 fish. Some of the expenditure may not have been made within the 

region, some may have been made partly for recreation other than spring chinook fishing, 

and some may represent expenditure by residents that would have been spent in the 

region anyway. At a minimum, the dollar figure should be documented.
IEAB Independent Economic

Analysis Board

Kenneth L. Casavant, Chair 

Roger Mann, Vice-Chair 

Joel R. Hamilton

Daniel D. Huppert

Noelwah R. Netusil

Lon L. Peters

Susan S. Hanna

Hans Radtke

2. The IEAB is concerned about the goal in §3.2 of the Management Plan that references 

the “recovery” of natural resource-based economies. The Plan does not suggest a 

standard for assessing what “economic recovery” might mean or how it would be 

monitored, and there is no discussion of the trade-off between recovery of fish 

populations and recovery of the local economy. The discussion in §3.3 of the “economic 

ramifications” clearly suggests that the authors of the Management Plan recognized this 

trade-off. While the IEAB recognizes that recovery of the local economy is critical to the 

citizens in this subbasin, there is a need for more specific description and evaluation of 

“economic recovery”, and how the subbasin plan might contribute to such recovery. 

The content of the Management Plan, with emphasis on its content related to economic 

impacts and local effects, is described below. Then, general suggestions for the planning 

process related to economics are provided.

The Management Plan attempts to provide a hierarchy, from a vision statement to 

actions, which can guide fish and wildlife planning in the subbasin. Following a 

statement of vision and goals, the Plan provides a "working hypothesis," regarding the 

condition and behavior of the subbasin ecosystem, and "component hypotheses," derived 

from the working hypothesis, which are grouped into categories of biological, 

environmental or socioeconomic. The component hypotheses are, generally, conditions 

that could be improved to benefit fish and wildlife. Each component hypothesis is 

followed by a number of "objectives," which include a variety of biological, protection 

and restoration goals and targets, and research and planning goals. 

The component hypotheses under socioeconomics are summarized below:

#18. Management Plan integration with existing programs, projects and initiatives can 

achieve benefits beyond the value of an individual program or project and will promote 

the application of ecosystem management principles.

#19. Economic factors play an important role in determining the effective and efficient 

implementation of habitat-related improvement or protection strategies.

#20. Long-term program implementation is more successful where projects are locally 

developed.

Each objective has at least one "strategy" to accomplish it. The Technical Guide defines 

strategies as "sets of actions to accomplish the biological objectives" (Page 

13)."Strategies are not projects but are instead guidance for the development of projects 

as part of the implementation plan."

Under the socioeconomics category, some strategies include: seeking local support, 

develop a prioritization process, coordinate plan implementation; develop tools to 

evaluate economic effectiveness and efficiency; minimize loss of local government 
IEAB Independent Economic

Analysis Board

Kenneth L. Casavant, Chair 

Roger Mann, Vice-Chair 

Joel R. Hamilton

Daniel D. Huppert

Noelwah R. Netusil

Lon L. Peters

Susan S. Hanna

Hans Radtke

(property) tax revenues; utilize local labor forces, contractors and supplies; and assist 

local groups.

Then "subsequent sections address more specific and finer scale restoration concerns and 

recommended actions" (Management Plan page 6). These subsequent sections are, 

apparently, a research, monitoring and evaluation plan (Section 3.4), and a section that 

attempts to prioritize habitat goals and "restoration issues" within the subbasin (Section 

3.5).

Neither the strategies nor the habitat restoration issues are defined well enough to infer 

what their economic effects might be. The ISRP found that the management plan "does 

not enunciate true strategies" (p. 19). In general, the IEAB must concur with this finding. 

The Clearwater Management Plan is not specific enough in terms of actions and 

quantifiable objectives to provide any opportunity for meaningful analysis. 

The IEAB believes that future subbasin planning efforts should focus more effort on 

ongoing, proposed and potential projects as examples of actions that might be bundled to 

constitute strategies. "Strategies are not projects" but projects should be used as examples 

of how a strategy might be implemented. Project descriptions, with sufficient detail to 

estimate biological and economic effects, are necessary in order to evaluate the costeffectiveness of proposed actions, both within each subbasin and across subbasins. The 

ISRP states "the inventory presents a comprehensive list of existing actions, as well as 

some past and planned activities, but needs to analyze. . . how well present activities are 

addressing the needs of fish and wildlife populations, and provides interpretive 

conclusions. . ."(Page 1) The logical result of this exercise would be a list of strategies, 

each with a list of ongoing, proposed and potential projects under that strategy, with 

information regarding their effectiveness in meeting fish and wildlife objectives. Cost 

data could be provided as part of this summary. These data could provide a basis for 

consideration of local economic impacts.

Recommendations Related to Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in the Management Plan

IEAB Recommendation #5. The IEAB recommends that the management plan include a 

short section on cost-effectiveness analysis. This section should identify alternative 

projects or strategies that could achieve the same result. Cost-effectiveness analysis may 

be justified for these projects if the results and costs can be measured, and if the costs are 

large enough to justify the additional analysis. 

There is no section on cost-effectiveness analysis in the Clearwater Management Plan. 

For the great majority of strategies, no meaningful analysis could be conducted given 

their current form. Appendix A provides an opportunity to think about cost-effectiveness: 

Table 7 provides numerical goals for a variety of species at different life stages. If 

specific actions and strategies were related to these goals, a cost-effectiveness analysis 

might yield a quantification of the cost of achieving them. It may be the case that these 
IEAB Independent Economic

Analysis Board

Kenneth L. Casavant, Chair 

Roger Mann, Vice-Chair 

Joel R. Hamilton

Daniel D. Huppert

Noelwah R. Netusil

Lon L. Peters

Susan S. Hanna

Hans Radtke

goals are themselves not cost-effective when compared with other subbasins. The 

Council will eventually be allocating scarce financial resources across several subbasins, 

and information on cost-effectiveness should help guide those decisions.

The Clearwater Subbasin Inventory provides the list of ongoing projects within the basin. 

Some information on biological benefits is provided. As discussed above, the inventory 

section could be improved by providing information regarding the results and costs of 

these projects. If these projects were grouped into strategies in the management plan, then 

some cost-effectiveness analysis might be possible. If existing and proposed projects 

could be grouped under strategies, then alternative means for implementing a strategy 

might be identified and evaluated.

IEAB Recommendation #6. The Council may need to prioritize projects according to 

their cost effectiveness for meeting regional goals and objectives, and subbasin projects 

may be compared to mainstem actions. Therefore, subbasin planners should provide 

information on biological and physical benefits and economic costs of all subbasin 

strategies and projects for use in cost-effectiveness analysis at the regional level.

In prioritizing "opportunities for action" by Potential Management Units (PMUs, Section 

3.5), the Management Plan assumed that opportunities would be high, medium and low 

on federal, private/mixed, and timber company land, respectively. This may be a highly 

simplistic and inaccurate representation of potential costs. Restoration and protection 

goals for habitat improvements within each PMU are prioritized based on largely 

qualitative factors that are explained for each goal. It does not appear that costeffectiveness played any role in this process.

The Research, Monitoring, and Evaluation (RM&E) plan in §3.4 should include 

continuing evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of the specific actions that are eventually 

implemented in the subbasin.

The IEAB notes that Action 151 provides for BPA to experiment with water brokerage 

arrangements that could help increase tributary flows. This action appears to be 

consistent with suggestions made by the IEAB in the “Economics of Water Acquisition 

Projects” (IEAB 2001-1) January 2001. Water transfers and exchanges are often underutilized as cost-effective mechanisms for improving instream habitat. Subbasin plans may 

be a useful way to implement some of these ideas.

________________________________________

q:\tm\ww\fish\ieab\clearwater commments.doc