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Documents for WA Forum on Monitoring Public Review of Proposed Protocols
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Published Date: July 09, 2010
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About this Document
As required by state statute, the Washington Forum on Monitoring Salmon Recovery and Watershed Health adopted “general high level indicators for salmon recovery and watershed health” in December 2009 (Attachment 1). Also, as required by the Washington state legislature, the Forum adopted the protocols for monitoring these high level indicators - subject to a 30-day public review. This message begins that public review process. The proposed protocols are presented in Attachment 2.
These protocols were identified by senior technical monitoring managers from both state and federal agencies, mindful of the criteria listed in Attachment 3. In keeping with the Legislature’s intent that we standardize the protocols supporting the Forum’s high level indicators, several state monitoring programs have already agreed to make minor adjustments (or in some cases to add an additional method) to align their field methods with those of the larger federal monitoring programs (AREMP[1] and PIBO[2]). By doing so, we expect to substantially improve the alignment of field monitoring methods (for the Forum’s indicators) across a significant breadth of monitoring efforts in Washington. Some of the key monitoring programs included are:
· The Department of Ecology’s statewide Watershed Health Status and Trends Monitoring Program
· The Salmon Recovery Funding Board’s Effectiveness Monitoring Program
· The Salmon Recovery Funding Board’s Intensively Monitored Watersheds Program
· Washington Conservation Corp’s CREP[3] Monitoring Program (for canopy cover)
· U.S. Forest Service’s AREMP Program
· The Bureau of Land Management’s PIBO Program
Taken together, these monitoring programs represent a significant amount of stream and watershed health monitoring data annually collected across the state. From at least cursory review, we believe that many other monitoring programs currently being implemented are likely using field methods that are close to, if not fully consistent with, the proposed protocols (though we note that documentation of methods varies considerably between programs).
The Monitoring Forum’s goal is to standardize and align monitoring protocols (methods) in order to increase the total amount of data that can be shared and used across programs – improving efficiency, expanding effective sample sizes, and increasing the statistical power and reliability of analyses. However, fundamental to the concept of “alignment,” we recognize that some programs may need to make reasonable adjustments to their current methods (i.e. cross-programmatic alignment cannot occur if programs resist any modification, substitution, or addition to their current methods).
When considering the Monitoring Forum’s proposed protocols, it helps to understand the implications of adopting these as standards (Attachment 4) as well as likely next steps (Attachment 5).
We look forward to your thoughts and comments on the Forum’s proposed protocols.
Please send any comments to Ken Dzinbal (ken.dzinbal@rco.wa.gov) by COB on August 9, 2010.
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[1] Aquatic and Riparian Effectiveness Monitoring Program
[1] PACFISH/INFISH Biological Opinion Effectiveness Monitoring Program
[1] Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program