Attachment 7b 

	 GCMRC (Scott) – Element 2.4 mentions a mid-year and end of year fiscal reporting on the 

carryover. USGS is often waiting for allocations from BOR and other things are influx as well. The 

EOY reporting is done in the Annual Reporting Meeting and that should be sufficient for our 

budget reporting. 

	 State of Arizona (Jeff) – No comment.. 

	 State of New Mexico (Paul) – Perhaps we could include Randy’s concerns. 

	 TWG Chair Elect (Seth) – Have the BAHG address this issue in more detail: (1) Section 2.2 on 

priorities seems like a perfect section to be revisited by the BAHG, look at how the ROD fits into 

the future and take backward look at the foundational documents and consider listing them there, 

and (2) section 2.9 under criteria for making annual changes, there was BAHG discussion on 

whether or not the criteria was limiting the conversations in some ways, whether the 3-year cycle 

is the right cycle. 

	 State of Nevada (Peggy) – Pass. 

	 FFF/TU (Joe) – Have people look at a more current copy (than March 8) and discuss this fall. 

Until we see what the process is being proposed, we’re shooting at a moving target. If the original 

intent was to reduce the workload, we need to look at a rolling 3-year budget and get the flexibility 

we need. 

	 USFWS (Kirk) – 1) I’m trying to connect the need for some sort of statutory sideboard via a 

motion to do what the law requires us to do and wondering if what we need as part of this budget 

process is a dedicated timeframe to get a presentation from a solicitor or DOI to talk about the 

Act and what those sideboards are. 2) The lack of real priorities continue to vex us. We have 7-10 

different documents that have been used to outline our priorities and at some point fails to be 

prioritization at all. 

	 NPS/GRCA (Jan) – The GCPA is to guide this program. The LTEMP may provide an opportunity 

for us to refocus and gets back to priorities. There are number of things in the experimental 

categories that will be coming into play and we need to make sure that our science plan is 

aligned with the commitments that we’re making in that document 

	 NPS/GLNRA (Rosemary) – A compliment to Shane for his work with the BAHG. A timeline has 

been identified on page 5 and so I’ll take a look at that. 

	 Hopi Tribe (Mike) – One area that needs additional work is incorporating BOR’s portion of the 

budget that actually does cultural projects under Section 106 compliance. It would be beneficial to 

look at how that project development funding gets incorporated into the overall budget process. 

With LTEMP coming online, there could be some NPS projects that might be developed 

independent of GCMRC. 

	 Hualapai Tribe (Kerry) – Support the comments provided thus far. 

	 State of Colorado (Randy) – I’d really like a step in the process where we go back and see if we 

are meeting the guidance that was given in the GCPA and the guidance that was also given by 

the solicitor at the start of this program. Those two things need to be factored in. I would like to 

see the process from the Knowledge Assessment included as it focused on the issues and what 

the impacts are. We then need to look at whether we can say these problems can be 

successfully addressed by changes to dam operations. If they can’t, then we need to have 

another process where we go through and say we can address these from dam operations, but 

how do we go about in getting them solved or addressed outside of GCDAMP funding. The goal 

in all of this is to have enough criteria that we can easily decide what’s inside and covered by 

AMP funding and what is outside and may just may just be using for example socioeconomics. 

There’s nothing that dam operations can change that’s really going to impact that and if we’re 

looking to just dam operations, even those aren’t going to have an impact on the socioeconomics 

are. That’s where I’d like to go with the process. The other thing is that during the triennial budget 

process, you need to have some way to be able to adjust that work plan if you get to a point that 
says we’ve learned enough about this that we can set this aside and move on to something else. 

The money we don’t use would go to carryover and we could use for the next priority item on the 

list. You have to have the ability to adjust the process during that 3-year period to successfully 

adjust it to take out things we’ve studied enough and perhaps go back to the 2-year budget 

process to give you some ability to make those modifications. When I say socioeconomics, I’m 

really concerned about the nonuse value studies that get incorporated. I think if you change dam 

operations, certainly they have an impact on recreation and those things, but I don’t think you 

need to get a lot into the nonuse value stuff because that becomes an issue between does the 

dam exist or not and that goes outside the scope. We worked on trying to get a core monitoring 

program in place since the beginning of the program and made strides but then it seemed to fall 

by the wayside. I’d really like to see that part of the things that are considered as you go forward. 

	 CREDA (Bill) – Many good comments have been made. We need to continue focusing on 

program priorities and try to ensure that we continue to focus the budgeting of certain projects on 

things that are legally mandated and required to be done and not do necessarily and spend 

money focused on projects that are neat to do but are not necessarily legally mandated to do. In 

some aspects we have a tendency to move like we did in the 80s and 90s to any and all projects 

that seem fun to do. We can get diverted and we can spend money on a lot of different things 

that are not necessarily things that we’re required to do. This program has been laid out in the 

law to do certain things and we continue to divert from that and get off into things that are fun and 

interesting to do, but don’t necessarily stay on the core issues that we’re supposed to be 

addressing. 

	 UAMPS (Cliff) – I support all things I’ve heard. We need to take a hard look at the 3-year budget 

cycle process because we’re kind of looking at it and that’s firm and hard to change. In reality, we 

ought to look at the second year and see if changes need to be made, and the third year should 

be fairly flexible so changes can be made. I see it as a not a 17-18-19 budget but a 3-year budget 

moving out one year every year. You’re always looking at 3 years out but you don’t block in real 

tight for that second or third year. You leave some flexibility and plan ahead for 3 years so you 

can react to what’s going on. If some project is turning out to not be what you wanted, then you 

can stop it and do something else. Or if something comes up that’s really important, you can find 

ways to fund it by cutting out things that aren’t doing some well. The concept of a 3-year budget 

needs to be revisited. We need to make sure that in the budget process some guidance as to 

what legal requirements we’re going to meet. We have the GCPA, some interpretations of that 

Act, and we have Loveless document that we need to use so that we’re continually going back 

and looking at those requirements. 

	 WAPA (Craig) – The budget protocol relies heavily on things like the Strategic Science Plan and 

the core monitoring plans and it’s time to revisit and finalize those as needed. It’s important to 

keep those plans current and use as guidance documents. 

	 NPCA (Kevin) – Echo praise for Shane’s ability to both develop the protocols and describe them 

in a way that can be understood. It’s important that we don’t try to stall our individual concerns 

about one type of process document. Let’s go through the process and get into deep discussions 

about socioeconomics. I think that’s really important that we fund economic information about 

what’s happening in our adaptive management program. Yes, we need to meet all our legal 

requirements, but it’s an adaptive management program. We exist because the process needs to 

adapt to new information we’re getting. 

	 AZGFD (Dave) – I haven’t had time to look at this information but do agree with much of what 

has been said. 

	 GCMRC (Scott) – I think the 3-year budget cycle has been very beneficial to GCMRC’s 

productivity. I don’t want to go back to an annual budget process. I still hear horror stories about 

people who had to do those. The work process is a good 6+ months of GCMRC’s focus and want 

to be careful that our scientists are spending most of their time being scientists and not writing 
budgets and work plans. It’s a lot of heavy lifting from GCMRC and the cooperators. 

	 GCWC (Larry) – The larger discussion is that we work to guide the AMWG to guide the Secretary 

towards understanding effects of dam operations on the resources and the implications of the 

flow alterations on those resources. To do so, we need models and we need really great science 

on a number of topics, some of which we don’t know much about yet, i.e., nutrient dynamic. Our 

larger job is to direct this process towards predictive modeling on effects of dam operations on 

resources. That said, we can talk about the strategies for modifying a 3-year budget planning 

process. We need to be really clear and not burden GCMRC with having to rewrite grants and 

deal with changing rules. 

	 Navajo Nation (Melinda) – I would like to hear what the nonuse values are because it seems to 

be the underlying basis of this discussion and what that means. 

Mr. Capron pointed out that the AS-WS asked the AWMG and TWG to revise the 2-year budget 

process to a 3-year budget process. She was very specific in the task and while the group can 

consider changes they’d like to make, there will need to be input sought directly from the 

Department of the Interior since those instructions came from AS-WS Anne Castle.