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Puget Sound Nearshore Partnership
Steering Committee Meeting
July 20, 2005

Attendees:

Terry Wright, Heather Trim, Robert Koeppen, Doug Osterman, Tim Smith, Bernie Hargrave, Fred Goetz, Naki Stevens, Dick Ecker, John Dohrmann, Jacques White, Beth Coffey, Curtis Tanner, Debbie Rick

Introductions:

Dick Ecker was in attendance for the first time, representing Pacific Northwest National Laboratories (PNNL). Dick is very enthusiastic about the Partnership. He comes to the group with 15 years of experience with the USACE – San Francisco office. He then went to work with PNNL in Richland before he became the Manager of the Marine Sciences Laboratory in Sequim.

Report from the Federal Project Manager

White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation: Strengthening Shared Governance and Citizen Stewardship - The Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency are co-hosting this event with the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

On August 29, 30 and 31, 2005, invited representatives from the public and private sectors will convene in St. Louis, Missouri, to consider the advancement of this cooperative conservation vision. Tim Smith and Director Jeff Koenings are attending this conference.

The Pacific Northwest is represented in the following Concurrent Sessions:

Washington State Olympia Oyster Restoration
Nisqually River Watershed, Olympia, Washington
Water Without War: Cooperative Salmon Restoration

In addition, Tim Smith will be attending these sessions:

Infrastructure Projects: Collaborative Partnerships for Successful Outcomes
Reaching Across Boundaries to Promote Shared Governance

Lieutenant General Carl A. Strock, Commander and Chief of Engineers, US Army Corps of Engineers,

is scheduled to come to the Seattle District the week of August 22 for two days. Bernie was hoping to pick him up at the airport and showcase the Seahurst site before taking him to dinner and a Nearshore presentation.

Corps PSNERP ‘06 Budget

The Senate and House budgets are very far apart. Probably will not be visited until after the August break (Energy and Water Budget), however the Interior budget could possibly start discussion as early as July 21. USGS and the Coastal Habitats in Puget Sound (CHIPS) have $912,000 in the budget. USGS is meeting next week to determine the expenditure plan.

Invitation to the Puget Sound Ecosystem Research Plan meeting –

Recently, NOAA Fisheries invited agencies and organizations to participate in a meeting on July 27 to kick off the development of a research plan for ecosystem-based management in the Puget Sound. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the objectives of the "Science Needs" document and how best to get participant input into its content.

Invitees were asked to send one or two examples of key management decisions in which they are involved (or to which you are paying a good deal of attention) that affect the Puget Sound ecosystem and require additional scientific information and decisions that affect other management efforts (e.g. setting in-stream flow standards affects shoreline management, water quality in large rivers and the Puget Sound itself, and salmon recovery efforts).

In response to this request, Guy Gelfenbaum/Tom Mumford released the “Coastal Habitats in Puget Sound: A Research Plan in Support of the Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystem Restoration Program” in a draft form to a select few.

Jeff Koenings, Director, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, has asked two of his special assistants, Phil Anderson and Tim Smith, to attend this meeting on his behalf.

End of Year Funds (Handout) –

Bernie passed out an Excel spreadsheet outlining PSNERP Federal End of Year Purchase List based on Strategic Work Plan Task (Stage 1 & 2); Process-based Studies and Program Needs. The end of year funds ($116,000) along with re-appropriated unspent funds from other programs at USACE could be used toward the line items on the spreadsheet. Three funding priorities were discussed in further detail:

1. One of the items is the WRIA 9, King Conservation District Pilot Project. Because the Corps of Engineers is able to contract much more quickly, the Partnership could funnel funds for a larger study through CommEnSpace.

2. Valued Ecosystem Components (VECs) white papers – The VECs (Pacific salmon, forage fish, great blue herons, etc.) are being used by the Nearshore Partnership to help explain the benefits of restoring nearshore ecosystems. The white papers will describe the relationship between VECs and nearshore ecosystems. They will provide a synthesis of the literature, which links them to nearshore habitats and associated processes. Subject matter experts will write the VEC papers with technical background and common language describing which nearshore processes or components affect each VEC.

3. Future without Project Conditions Analysis – Phase 1: Model Design. University of Washington research scientist Marina Alberti will be contracted to develop a framework for this task.

People for Puget Sound Shorelines Strategy: Measuring Success Project –
Naki Stevens and Heather Trim

In 2004, People For Puget Sound launched a coordinated effort to protect and restore 2,000 miles of Puget Sound’s shorelines in ten years. This effort combines education, advocacy, and habitat protection and restoration to ensure Puget Sound’s shorelines are restored to health and are protected for future generations.

People for Puget Sound are using a number of tools to help prioritize our actions and measure success:

• Best available science (PSNERP is a valuable tool)
• Government programs at the state level and local critical areas ordinance and shoreline master program updates
• Opportunities such as landowner willingness and opportunities to collaborate with other organizations

To quantify the key threats and opportunities and to determine future areas of geographic focus, they are working on a threats inventory and a protection assessment.

The threats inventory involves gathering existing geographic and other data on current habitat conditions and threats such as shoreline modification or sediment contamination. The protection assessment will include factors such as land ownership, critical areas and shoreline master program ordinance strengths, and education programs.

The information collected as part of the threats inventory and protection assessment will measure success periodically. For example:

• Miles of shoreline protected by stronger ordinances (width of shoreline buffers in each county)
• Acres (or linear miles) restored through private/public partnerships
• Number of public storm drain outfalls (reduction in number indicates success)
• GIS layer inventory for specific geographic areas (how is this indicator?)
• Number of Sewer/Septics
• Contaminated sediments

Working with PSNERP, People for Puget Sound hopes to work collaboratively collecting information that will be useful to the Project and can be further refined and improved as the major PSNERP assessment progresses. In addition, it is anticipated that the PSNERP products (Technical Documents) will be an important element of People for Puget Sound’s ten-year plan.

Steering Committee Action: Beth Coffey suggested that Heather Trim (People for Puget Sound Lead Scientist) meet with the Implementation Team and selected NST members to further discussion.

Nearshore Science Team Co-Lead Report – Fred Goetz

The NST met on June 16 and 17, 2005. First day was in Olympia and the second day was a field trip departing from the Skokomish Indian Tribe office.

Major Meeting Topics:

“Using Tidal Channel Hydraulic Geometry in Restoration Design” by Dr. Philip Williams of Philip Williams and Associates, Ltd., a renowned consulting group that promotes integrated hydrology, hydraulics and sediment transport, geomorphology and engineering studies.

Hydraulic geometry is a set of empirical geomorphic relationships linking tidal cannel geometry to easily measure field parameters representing the dominant tidal discharge. These relationships need to be monitored and evaluated as place specific, i.e., Puget Sound would have its own specific relationships) and important to predicting and evaluating role of tidal channel structure in tidal restoration.

“Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Program” by Dr. Jan Newton, University of Washington. The program is updating oxygen inventory values: comparing 1950-60s and 1990- 2000s. Key points include – greater fresh water flow induces mixing but also produces cap on surface; there are many hypotheses on possible causes of low dissolved oxygen: there is a scientific and policy need to understand which are most important/driving the system. Current research data is limited; they are trying to optimize monitoring and use computer modeling.

The science plan they are implementing includes a number of points: Marine water quality water monitoring; fresh water flow and nutrient loading; marine life studies; rapid response and diver program; modeling and analysis. For more information, see www.hoodcanal.washington.edu.

“Skokomish River Delta Estuary Restoration Program,” presentation by Keith Dublanica, Natural Resources Director of the Skokomish Indian Tribe. Keith described studies to date for the NST. The Tribe and partners believe that the Skokomish River could re-occupy the delta system once the stressors have been removed.

The river is a significant piece of the tribe’s culture and they believe with healing that the river could resume its productivity, see improvement with its water quality; not only health of the estuary would improve but the health of the tribe.

NST Status and Action Items

Research Questions – The questions are a work in progress: current list has been revised and edited, but social science and management measures questions remain to be added. The list of questions will be passed to the Implementation Team with the understanding that the NST will continue to refine the questions. The List of Questions will be Appendix A of the Research Plan.

VEC Approach to Documentation – The Project Management Team and the Nearshore Science Team discussed the need to develop and outline a template for VEC white papers. (See Attached VEC Paper Document Process).

VEC Next Steps:

• Develop VEC List with Experts – Polling the NST for list of Names
• Report to Steering Committee on progress
• Develop Template or Outline of White Paper
• Develop Scope of Work to hire a contractor to coordinate the White Papers into a single report.

The NST and the Steering Committee have had intensive/extensive discussions regarding comments from the Executive Committee that humans should somehow be included in the VEC list. There is some confusion on the issue of where “humans” belong, explicitly on the VEC list or implicitly because they are the entire basis for the V (valued).

Management Measures – Elaine Kleckner is developing the master list (using PRISM database). The NST will comment on the list via e-mail. NST advocates either consolidating or annotating the list of management measures to differentiate those that focus on restoring nearshore ecosystem processes as opposed to those that (only) modify ecosystem structure. The list needs to be revised and then sent to the Steering Committee, while NST will continue to expand “focus” on process-based management measures.

Research Plan and External Peer Review – The draft report is in the final editing stage before it goes to external peer review. USGS has completed their technical editing of the report written by Guy Gelfenbaum and Tom Mumford.
· USACE provided the funds to USGS for editing and publication of the document (refer to end of year funds handout)
· Guy Gelfenbaum/Tom Mumford released the “Coastal Habitats in Puget Sound: A Research Plan in Support of the Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystem Restoration Program” in a draft form to a select audience.

WRIA 9 Historic and Change Analysis – CommEnSpace is incorporating missing data into the WRIA 9 dataset including southern boundary and (remaining portion of) Duwamish River estuary. The Shipman Typology includes thirteen different shore forms, CommEnSpace was tasked with developing rules on how to classify (identify) each of the types, and however sever different shore forms were not encountered in WRIA 9.

The NST and Project Management Team discussed how to develop rules for these, e.g., analyze one large region or selected locations all around the Sound. The next step should be to evaluate how rules to distinguish shore forms can be refined with addition of contemporary datasets.

Linking Nearshore Ecosystem Processes to Structure – Hugh Shipman has put Si Simenstad’s list and classification of nearshore ecosystem processes into a table corresponding to shore forms, where larger scale “processes drivers” “process controls” were used. Work in Progress.

Implementation Team Co-Lead Report – Beth Coffey

The Implementation Team has two primary functions:

• Keep the General Investigation moving forward, acting as a plan formulation cell (with the understanding that the corps is ultimately responsible for production of the feasibility report); and
• Support ongoing local restoration and protection

Some suggested changes:

Membership – Simplify to non-federal and federal co-leads. Continue to have representation from the Steering Committee and the NST on the team.

Steering Committee Recommendation:Doug Myers to be Co-Lead of Implementation Team and liaison to the Nearshore Science Team.

FY06 Budget – Highlights of Discussion

• Priority in Stage 2 Work Plan – Money in the federal budget (1.5M)
• Request for $500,000 in the state legislative budget for the biennium ($208,000 in hand)
• FY06 Budget should be developed in tiers based on different levels of funding
• When developing the budget, think beyond one year.
• One item of the FY06 budget should be Implementation Team Management – 1 FTE
• Identify unfunded tasks in budget to take out to the end of Stage 2
• Define work vs. doing the work
• Commit to a date for a strategic needs assessment: imperfect in places but we still have to deliver

Steering Committee Action:

1) First Draft of FY06 Budget for the August Steering Committee Meeting;

2) Revise for the September Steering Committee Meeting;

3) By October have a product with funding in place. Put together a Puget Sound Partners Planning Meeting. Hold a “Summit” with the Implementation Team and the Nearshore Science Team (and Steering Committee?)

Executive Committee Meeting De-Brief – Tim Smith

The Executive Committee meeting that was held on July 11, 2005, was well attended with some of our newest members as well.

The Summit Summary report was accepted. The Summary basically indicates that the Partnership has fallen behind in the Work Plan and the general understanding is that the Stage 2 of the Feasibility will be completed by September 2007 with delivery of the Strategic Needs Assessment Report.

The Partnership needs to continue with Early Action Projects; it has a green light to keep going forward.

Valued Ecosystem Components – Role of Humans
Human Health and Safety

Valuable to what?

1) Puget Sound health and conditions
2) Humans

We selected VECs based on importance to humans; link to the partnership and restoration.

What is the Valued Ecosystem “uses”?
What is the Valued Ecosystem “sustenance”?

Steering Committee Action: Jacques White volunteered to head up a VEC sub-committee.

Next Steering Committee Meeting

Potential Topics:

• Puget Sound Initiative (John Dohrmann, Naki Stevens)
• Presentation on USGS workshop/research needs 1) Skagit Delta 2) Elhwa Dam 3) urbanization of South Sound – Rob Koeppen
• FY06 Budget Development Status
• VEC White Paper Status – Fred Goetz/Curtis Tanner
• Status of NASA NW Collaboratory Budget – Dick Ecker
• Nearshore Potential Projects Database demonstration – Elaine Kleckner