SDCP - Steering Committee
Elk's Lodge - #385
8:30am to 12 noon
Saturday, February 2, 2002
Meeting Notes
Participants: See attached sign-in sheet, members of the Science and Technical Advisory Team, members of the public, County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry, Maeveen Behan, David Steele and SIMG staff.
Speakers: Dr. William Shaw, Director of STAT. Paul Fromer, RECON Consultants.
Documents made available to the Steering Committee members at the meeting:
* Meeting notes from the January 22, 2002 Ad-Hoc Subcommittee meeting noting the dates and times for the next three meetings for the Ad-Hoc Subcommittee.
* Extra copies of the STAT presentation
* Schedule and locations for future meetings.
* Copy of correspondence between Paula Wilk, Deputy County Attorney from the office of the County Attorney and a member of the public.
* Extra Agendas
Meeting Commenced at 8:30 am
Meeting commenced with 33 Steering Committee members and 31 members of the general public present.
The total count ended at 47 Steering Committee members, 7 members of the STAT, and 40 members of the general public.
Introductory Comments and Logistics
* David Steele opened up the meeting by announcing the Steering Committee's intent to ratify en bloc all previous decisions that were presented to the Steering Committee members in their information packets per the resolution offered by County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry and advised by County Attorney Katarina Richter, at the time that a quorum was achieved.
* David reiterated that it was also recommended by the Board of Supervisors that staff be directed to create a resolution that would address the attendance policy to the Steering Committee. The Board of Supervisors' recommendation was dismissal for missing three or more meetings.
Ground Rules, as they would apply to this meeting only:
1. Only Steering Committee members can participate in the discussion of issues on the agenda.
2. General public will participate at the Call to the Public.
3. One minute per person per agenda topic.
4. Can only speak a second minute if everyone else has spoken.
5. At appointed time, move to decision making or next topic
6. Start and end on time.
Discussion:
* None.Ground rules should apply to this agenda.
Logistics for the next meeting:
Wednesday, February 20, 2002 from 6pm to 9pm
Sheraton Tucson on Grant
5151 E. Grant Road
Old Business:
* Membership Issue: The Board of Supervisors made some changes to the Steering Committee membership. David presented the new members of the Steering Committee. The changes made by the Board of Supervisors left 75 Steering Committee members. This makes the quorum requirement 38 Steering Committee members.
* Quorum Issue: Established by the transcripts from the January 15th Board of Supervisors meeting. The Board of Supervisors directed staff to come up with a resolution that would indicate that the Board will review and consider the comments forwarded by those Steering Committee members in attendance at any of the Steering Committee meetings; including meetings attended by the quorum of the Steering Committee.
Issues for future meeting agendas and new business:
* Blank index cards were passed around to the Steering Committee members so they could write the issues they would like to see addressed on future agendas. The Ad-Hoc Subcommittee will use these cards when assembling agendas for future meetings
Discussion:
* Could you clarify the difference between a Steering Committee meeting and a study session?-A Study session is one in which information is provided to the Steering Committee members and a quorum is not required, so no vote would be taken and no decisions would be made.
-A meeting is where there is the possibility that decisions will be made.
-The Ad-Hoc would like to recommend that a study session, with sufficient notice, might turn into a meeting.
* With respect to the February 20th meeting, it was discussed with Linda Mayro, who is managing the Cultural and Recreation Team, and the Ranch Team, that those two teams would come to address the Steering Committee on this date.
* There had previously been a concern that the May 18th meeting would conflict with the UA graduation. It has since been clarified that the UA graduation is on May 11th and will not cause a conflict for the Steering Committee.
Guest Speaker Dr. William Shaw:
Ø The Science and Technical Advisory Team had the general objective of providing the Steering Committee and the community of Tucson with the kind of information that would be useful in making intelligent decisions about land use and the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.
Ø Formed a committee of nine people, selected for their expertise in conservation biology, natural resources and experience in those topics. Broad representation from resource management perspective, broad representation from tax-anomy expertise, but they are all conservation biologists.
Ø RECON; a company with a local office as well as national experience in doing conservation planning, in large scale and specifically in habitat conservation plans.
Ø Get all involved on the same level of education regarding Government Species Act, Habitat Conservation Plan, and all of the general issues, including conservation biology principals, reserve design principals; proceeded to identify specific goals and define process to accomplish those goals.
Ø Laid out two basic aspects of the objectives of STAT. One is to provide information incorporating conservation and biodiversity issues into large scale planning for Pima County. Secondly, plan to assure the perpetuity of the full spectrum of biological resources that we have in this county.
Ø Separation of the information needed to obtain a Section Ten Permit. A mechanism for getting some relief from the Endangered Species restrictions.
Ø We're going to do a landscape scale; biological community and biological richness emphasis plan for Pima County. Will lead to qualification for the Section Ten Permit.
Ø Developed a process to accomplish those objectives that included all the various gathering of information that's specific to Pima County, consultation with hundreds of experts in the field of conservation biology and local biological resources, reviews, and development of this very comprehensive database with the help of Pima County.
Ø This is the largest scale conservation plan ever attempted and also the largest scale multi-species habitat conservation plan that will lead to a Section Ten Permit.
Ø Species richness level planning, rather than an individual species. Logical, from a conservation perspective to look at the big picture. In planning for all this biodiversity, we will do the same for the individual species.
At this point it was noted that a quorum had been achieved.
David read an excerpt from County Attorney, Katarina Richter's December 26th letter:
"The best way to fix the problem [the problem of not having a quorum] is to have a full quorum of the committee ratify any action previously taken by less than a quorum of the committee membership. It is my understanding that thus far, the meetings of the committee have been dealing only with procedural matters for which ratification should be fairly simple."
David began to read the list of decisions that have been presented to the Steering Committee members in meetings and through their information packets.
Discussion:
* We've all heard these decisions, we have received the list of decisions in the mail, and we have been present at the meetings where these decisions were first made, I don't think we need to go through them one by one all over againMotion: Suspend further reading of the specific decisions
Course of Action: Further reading of the specific decisions would be suspended.
Discussion:
· We have all seen the correspondence between Peter and the County Attorney's office I say we let him speak.
* If there are legal issues we should get those to the County Attorney and get a response from the County Attorney and not take legal advice from the public, but to have the County Attorney review issues members of the public raise. In the interim the County Attorney has advised us that we can ratify en bloc.
Motion: En block ratification of all previous decisions would be voted on
Course of Action: All previous decisions were ratified en block by consensus of the 47 Steering Committee members present.
{Comment by member of the public}: There wasn't a legally posted agenda with the decisions for public review. By Open Meeting Law, there is a thirty-day time limit in which decisions may be ratified en bloc, but that time has passed and you cannot ratify these decisions without discussion of each one. These are laws that are followed by every board, commission and committee in the county.
Paul Fromer, RECON Consultants
Ø This is a presentation made to a peer review committee in October; reviewing the scientific aspect of the development of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.
Ø Section Ten Permit, a permit to incidentally take a listed species, added to the Endangered Species Act in 1982 for non-federal entities, states, local governments, and private entities to be able to incidentally take along with conservation measures.
Ø The non-federal applicant is asking for a permit to incidentally take a species whose presence may present a problem for either public or private projects. It is a voluntary application. The Fish and Wildlife, or the Federal Government cannot require you to apply for a Section Ten Permit.
Ø Section Seven of the Act, is the portion of the Act that's available to federal entities that must comply with the Endangered Species Act.
Ø The issuance of the Section Ten Permit is a federal action requiring review under the National Environmental Policy Act, requires development of an Environmental Impact Statement or an Environmental Assessment. Large Habitat Conservation Plans go through the full Environmental Impact Statement process.
Ø First: define the impact that will result from the proposed incidental take. Second: Have measures to monitor, to minimize and mitigate those impacts. Third: Have a set of assurances that those things will be undertaken as part of the plan. Fourth: Unforeseen circumstances, how to respond and what are the responsibilities of the applicants versus the responsibilities of the federal government to deal with changes in either the status of the animal or global climate change. This guarantees the applicant certain constraints on what the Fish and Wildlife Service can require.
Ø Alternatives of the proposed action, alternatives, which may have lesser impacts to the species, why didn't you choose to, move forward with those. As well as any additional measures that the service may recommend during the development of the plan, which would be necessary to avoid jeopardizing the continued existence of the species.
Ø Fish and Wildlife Service has a parallel set of criteria that they must find before issuing that Section Ten Permit. First, that the taking will be incidental, that there is no direct intentional taking of the listed species. Second: The applicant will minimize and mitigate any taking that will occur of the species. Third: There will be adequate funding to implement all of those actions that are incorporated in the Habitat Conservation Plan. Fourth: Unforeseen circumstances are documented.
Ø The Service has to make the finding that the incidental take permit, as issued, will not reduce the likelihood of survival and recovery of a species. Important criterion, not easily defined from a scientific and objective standpoint, but necessary.
Ø Then any other measures that they require as conditions of the plan. Then a fully developed assurances document, which is a legal contract between the applicant and all the participants, in particular Fish and Wildlife Service.
Ø The adopted biological goal of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan tries to embody the desire to go beyond the Endangered Species Act and while concerned with endangered or threatened species, looks at the entire range of species, biological resources that occur here in the county and to develop a plan that will conserve and protect representative aspects of all of the communities for the future heritage of the community.
Ø Starting point - develop the technical side of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. Create a plan that will achieve that goal and be useful in providing the background information for the development of an incidental take permit for those species that we have concluded-they either are listed or will be listed in the future, that they're already protected under the Section Ten Permit so that won't effect the orderly planning and progress of the county.
Ø These standards must be applied to those species that would be proposed as covered. Standards are more stringent than those of the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Ø We ask for those species for which we can demonstrate real coverage. Information needs can be a balance of- we've got everything that we know the species might need, within a proposed reserve system so we really don't need to collect much more information about it, or if a substantial portion of the range might not be within the reserve system, then we have adequate information to clearly define that we will manage and conserve the most important portions of that species range.
Ø Second set of criteria: mitigation and protection standards for the species proposed for listing. First define minimum habitat needs to assure protection and long-term existence of the species. To assess the protective status of these habitats, either currently or in a proposed plan to ensure that adequate protection and management is in place and mitigation will be assured, that there is funding and that there are legal mechanisms for insuring that mitigation. We develop some levels or thresholds of minimum protections that we can meet before we apply for a permit for those.
Ø Those are the criteria that STAT has established. Finally monitoring, management and peer review standards for reviewing all of the information and reviewing all of the future status of these species.
Ø External scientific peer review, the plan for monitoring the status of species must have adequate funding for management and activities. There must be institutional responsibilities so that we don't have a plan that works for the first few years and then because it's no longer in the focus, it disappears.
Ø The disappearance of species, and the disappearance of habitat that will occur over the next fifty years will be in perpetuity. The management for these species also must be in perpetuity so the plan has to have that permanence. The plan must be adaptive, able to change with either change in conditions or to changes in information that we have available, both in the species themselves and changes in the effectiveness of management practices.
Ø The actual plan area that we focused on excludes the Tohono O'odham Nation. We have collected biological information from existing data sources throughout the county, but the plan itself proposes nothing within the Nation lands. The plan area is in east and west Pima County to the east and west of the Nation.
Ø In our office we have been assisting the STAT as well as working very closely with Pima County staff, and with the expert review team, which consisted of 30 plus scientists who have participated at one level or another in helping us develop our information base. In addition, the Ranch Technical Advisory Team, the Cultural Resources Advisory Team and other issue teams, recreation and others have also worked with STAT and there have been a number of overlapping subcommittees with an exchange of information. We will continue to do that; as we get to some of the most important overlapping issues dealing with how are we going to actually implement management throughout this plan area and in the conservation land system as it is being developed.
Ø RECON is primarily consultants to the STAT although we certainly are available for meetings like this to provide information as is required and necessary and useful to the Steering Committee.
Ø The first major task was the development of a reserve design to meet the biological goals. Our next phase is the development of structures and mechanisms and methods for the implementation of an adaptive management plan. Finally that will then be folded into the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan as a Section Ten Permit application
Ø The land use planning aspect from the Comprehensive Land Use Plan perspective has taken input from the biological resources plan, the reserve design, and development of the conservation land use system, input that into the Comprehensive Land Use Plan and that now will be taken in as part of the implementation program for the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.
Ø The Steering Committee's role is to evaluate alternatives that will finally go into the actual Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan Section Ten Permit application, the Habitat Conservation Plan.
Ø There are a number of different elements, the habitat, corridor, riparian conservation, mountain parks, natural reserves, cultural resources and part of the ranching conservation elements. All of these are being taken into consideration in the development of the final alternatives that will be proposed.
Ø The biological aspect has to recognize each of these other elements although these elements are part of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan as opposed to the Habitat Conservation Plan. A number of those elements are embodied in the Habitat Conservation Plan aspect and reserve design; mountain parks, the riparian and the natural resources are all part of the Habitat Conservation Plan.
Ø Began process with individual species information for priority vulnerable species. The species that we wanted to focus on in the planning process. Looked at potential threats and stressors and determined a level of threat for each one of those such as being threatened by another species or loss of habitat.
Ø Evaluated the existing status of conservation within Pima County, compared to the kinds of threats that we could see, to come up with a 'Gap Analysis' to find the gaps and conservation status for those species and other vegetation communities and biological features that were in our plan for conservation when looking at it on a broad scale.
Ø What resulted in the reserve design, and the biologically preferred alternative configuration was to look for additional conservation measures that would be necessary, in particular those portions of the landscape which might need to be added to conservation management at one level or another to assure we are meeting the minimal biological needs of those species.
Ø In the end those will lead to a list of covered species, many or most of the fifty-five species that we currently have listed.
Ø Priority Vulnerable Species- Started with list that STAT developed of vulnerable species. Evaluated the priority vulnerable species list. Reviewed STAT's list and wound up with the 55 species, developed detailed write-ups, called Species Accounts. Numeric and quantitative data as well as qualitative data that we needed to use in the development of habitat distribution models for the species. Developed summary or compendium of available information on those species.
Ø A requirement in the guidelines that the Fish and Wildlife Service has is that you must provide overview of the available scientific information for the species. We have the basis for that and we will update the data as we go along and as we receive comments in the public comment period for those documents.
Ø We developed a summary of the number of types of species within each one of the watershed sub-areas. This was a peripheral task that we did to aid in the development of the biological threats and stressors analysis that we did early in the process that helped us to develop a structure for moving into the rest of the process.
Ø The vulnerable species list is composed of four different sets of species.
· First: species that were at risk in Pima County and for whom habitat in Pima County is crucial for their existence. They are endemic species; they occur only in Pima County or species that have most of their range within Pima County.
· Second: species that are at risk in Pima County and elsewhere throughout their range. The majority of their range may not be in Pima County, but they are threatened elsewhere.
· Third: species that are rare in the Pima County but their overall status is unknown, they may or may not occur in numbers elsewhere.
· Fourth: species at risk in Pima County but not at risk overall.
Ø We focused our attention on list one and two.
Ø Criteria for refining the priority vulnerable species:
· The ability to use other species as umbrella species, if we conserved this species, these other species which have similar needs would be conserved, so we don't need to keep these on the list.
· If an insignificant number of this species occurs, or there are no known occurrences, in the planning area, even though there are historic records of it, then that was another criteria for removing them from the first priority list.
· If they're not likely to occur in the study area or within the planning horizon of fifty-year period then they could be removed from the list.
· If they're too broadly distributed within the county to help us distinguish, they might occur any and everywhere in the county, also were culled from the list.
Ø Species on land managed by federal agencies and on the Tohono O'odham Nation, are a federal responsibility and there is not any incidental take need for species that only occur on federal lands. Those are dealt with in Section Seven of the Endangered Species Act.
Ø "Short List of priority vulnerable species"
· 9 mammals (7 bats)
· 8 birds (6 riparian)
· 7 reptiles (three aquatic/riparian)
· 2 frogs (aquatic dependent)
· 6 fish (aquatic dependent)
· 16 Invertebrates (mostly snails)
· 7 plants (2 aquatic or riparian)
Of the 40 non-snail species, 25 are dependent upon or associated with aquatic or riparian ecosystems.
Land Cover Data Assessment: Combination of the vegetation of the county with other land surface information, urban, agricultural, any other land use, encompasses everything that covers a land surface.
Ø Compilation of a multitude of GIS layers developed a Land cover map for Pima County using information gathered. Not financially and physically possible to go out and survey all 55 species and do a full inventory. We try to predict the distribution of those species on the landscape. We look at cover/vegetation maps because the species are distributed by their habitat requirements.
Biological Stress Assessment: Establish baseline knowledge of existing/potential threats and stressors to biological resources using components of past, existing and proposed land/water uses posing the greatest threats.
Ø Comprehensive overview of issues and concerns specific to each of the County's eight watershed Sub-areas.
Ø Stressors to biological resources are loss of habitat, alteration or degradation. Habitat fragmentation, decline in groundwater levels, water quality and in surface flows, character and function. Also human use and overuse, conversion of vegetative cover, competition and predation by invasive species, and disease.
Ø Examples of habitats of concern are streams with perennial and intermittent flow, springs, cienegas, areas of shallow groundwater and the remaining riparian woodlands. Cave habitats, limestone dependent plant communities, mine adits used by bats, grasslands low elevation valleys, saguaro, ironwood and xeroriparian areas as connections to and extensions from existing preserves.
Land Conservation Status: Land use, ownership, and management categories were assigned a value reflective of their level of existing protection or conservation status.
Reserve Design Overview: The first task to build the exterior of the reserve and the conservation land system boundaries and management areas. Then we build the interior which pulls from the Biological core, the scientific management area, the multiple use, recovery management area, and urban/agriculture areas within that reserve boundary. All these combined to build landscape lineages to connect cores across barriers.
· Other considerations are the priority plant communities, hydrological conditions, areas of high species richness outside the existing reserve system, areas needed to support minimum viable populations of each priority vulnerable species, and areas identified by the Nature Conservancy as having regional significance for conservation.
Alternatives: The alternatives that are being looked at are
· No Action: The County is required by NEPA-National Environmental Policy Act to have a No action Alternative. This is used with each alternative as a comparison, what happens to this area, if nothing is done.
The County can come up with any combination they want. The following are examples of what the County could say they want covered by the Section Ten Permit:
· County projects only, the County can apply for a Section Ten Permit and have it apply to only their projects and nothing else.
· County projects plus in process permits; that would only cover their projects and projects already in process, but nothing else.
· County projects plus in process and future projects, again this would only apply to county projects.
· County projects, permits and other entities within the County. This would include all those that would like to be included and covered by the Section Ten Permit.
Questions from Steering Committee Members:
Question: Will the economic analysis be part of the impact statement and if the conservation plan is amended, how will that impact your reserve?
Mr. Fromer: The economic analysis will be part of the impact statement. While different boards can update the conservation plan, assuring its permanence is one of the things that we will include in the application for the Section Ten Permit.
Question: If a landowner comes across an error in your data regarding his/her land, what is the process for corrections to the data?
Mr. Fromer: I cannot answer that because that is part of the mechanism that you as the Steering Committee need to help develop, it's part of the implementing agreement between the County and Fish and Wildlife.
Question: The inaccuracy of the input data needs to be looked at.
Mr. Fromer: We recognize the limitations of the data available. We have made allowances for that, and of course we welcome any data that can be provided to us from the public or the Steering Committee.
Question: How firm and closed is the list of species?
Mr. Fromer: It is our intent for this to be a living document, this is a process that is not species specific, but landscape and biodiversity oriented, therefore species that might be potentially listed have already been addressed, but the permit can be amended to include those.
Question: When and where will scoping meetings be held?
Mr. Fromer: That is out of my jurisdiction, I leave that answer to Maeveen Beham.
Maeveen: We 're scheduling now for probably March or April, and we are looking at several different locations, those have yet to be determined, but they will probably be in a couple of different places, so we'll get that information out to you.
Question: In regard to the process followed by the Fish and Wildlife and the process followed by the Habitat Conservation Plan, do those run separately or simultaneously?
Mr. Fromer: For the most part simultaneous, they both happen at about the same time.
Question: Can we get a copy of this presentation and do we have the opportunity to go to the GIS department at the county and go through these maps?
David: Yes, we will get this presentation for you and if you put the GIS question on the index card we will address that as well.
Question: I thought the Steering Committee was going to come up with the preferred alternative that we were going to submit to the county for review, but it sounds like you already have adopted a preferred alternative and you're already into the implementation stage.
Mr. Fromer: The list of alternatives that I outlined of potential alternatives, ways of adopting is clearly within the range of alternatives. The county, because they were required by state law to update the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, they tried to incorporate the best biological information that they could get within their documents, but the implementation aspects of how the conservation land use system is implemented and how that fits into the Section Ten Permit, those are the kinds of alternatives that the Steering Committee will have to look at.
Question: Is there anything between the 8 listed species and the biologically preferred alternative that you can help us consider?
Mr. Fromer: There is a wide range of alternatives that can be looked at in between those two, again a hybrid would take two philosophical approaches to conservation, and it would have to look at the landscape approach versus the species approach and reconcile those two.
Question: How would you predict the Fish and Wildlife Service's response to an eight species only reserve design versus the biological preferred reserve design, which doesn't capture a lot of the habitat of some of the listed species?
Mr. Fromer: We wanted to take the landscape within Pima County and try to look at it as a functional whole, then try to assemble a reserve design that responds to the broadest variety of needs within the County without focusing on any one species. Our assumption being that if we did a landscape conservation reserve design, that it would capture everything necessary for, if not all, then the vast majority of the species that occur within the County. In looking at the data I think that we will adequately cover all the species through the conservation plan and through management of the plan.
Question: What does the fact that a large portion of the land noted here is state land doing to the validity of your conservation land use system in the eyes of the Fish and Wildlife Service?
Mr. Fromer: It can certainly influence the list of species that they will agree to provide coverage for under the incidental take provisions of the permit. It may be that the list of species is substantially less if we don't include state lands.
Question: Can you help us to come up with a preferred alternative by comparing apples to apples of the 55 species short list and perhaps a shorter list so that we can compare subsets?
Mr. Fromer: From a technical standpoint that is something that we can do. In that direction we will certainly provide whatever input and advice that we can.
Question: Will you take that direction from us?
Dr. Shaw: That is one of the things I would hope that the Steering Committee would consider is not just numbers of species as alternatives, or geographical scope such as county lands versus private property. You ought to consider the implementation; we have a map that we think is defensible from the biological perspective, but the implications for land use policies range over a whole spectrum from are we going to go out and buy all the high priority areas, to keep zoning how it is now, and the zoning is our most powerful tool because there is a range of implementation alternatives that really translate this biology into what the county can live with socially and economically. I would encourage you to look at those kinds of alternatives rather than numbers of species and geographical scope.
Question: The last page of your outline lists five alternatives, are these the set of alternatives that the Steering Committee is expected to be looking at?
Mr. Fromer: That was a set of alternatives that I provided as a starting point for discussions, they don't have to be the range of alternatives that you look at, but that is a pretty logical set of alternatives based on the existing condition.
Question: Your work is geared to coming up with answers as to how one might reasonably decide what alternative is appropriate.
Mr. Fromer: It's an interplay to a certain extent between the participation of state lands and what we can actually get coverage for and then what level of permitting, county only, county plus in process, county plus future, the reserve system that we can guarantee what level of coverage we can match to that level of potential impact coverage in the permit.
Michael Zimet: Let it be stated that I am unclear as to what the alternatives are.
Question: Is it correct that you only considered the biology aspect? Would you consider this committee ill-equipped to make a decision or recommendation until they also have the understanding of what the economic impacts of all these decisions ought to be.
Mr. Fromer: I would agree.
Call to the Public:
Question: Who are the range scientists that are contributing to the data for the areas where cattle are being considered to be problematic species, and what will be the suggestion to the Steering Committee on how to implement the management alternative as far as biological cores and land systems on private land and monitoring for private landowners that don't want to participate?
Mr. Fromer: We have had communication with the Ranch Team, Dan Robinette and others in the ranching community at a subcommittee level and so we've opened that dialogue and we intend to move forward towards developing an adapting management plan to incorporate the best range science we can incorporate because we feel that's a critical element to the plan. We hope that the ranching community and other private large landowners that have lands that fall within the boundaries that we have identified will cooperate and participate in management, because they are the land managers. We would like for them to be active participants and beneficiaries of the information and coordination that will result from the overall process. Those that don't want to participate, the Section Ten Permit is voluntary and they can't be forced to participate. So they can't be forced to manage their lands in a way that is contrary to their plans.
Question: How long did it take you to get to this stage in the land system resources and how long do you expect it to take to promulgate the adaptive management part?
Mr. Fromer: We've been working for about two years on the conservation land system. We have started working on adaptive management, we will do as much as we can to fit the timing into the plan, it is our goal to have the most defensible scientific information incorporated into at least the guidance and the initial stage of adaptive management accomplished this year.
Question: Do you think you'll have the job well based by June?
Mr. Fromer: I can't guess at that.
Question: Could you address the statistical, modeling and fundamental uncertainties of gap analysis? Due to this uncertainty, which is entirely geographic and not biological, has it ever been subjected to legal review or challenge?
Mr. Fromer: I don't know that the gap analysis has ever been subject to legal challenge or review. The term Gap Analysis is a very loose term; it's a methodology that in its broadest aspect has been used by the federal government in assessing certain needs for conservation. We applied gap analysis to identify the level of the problem. Our approach was to go beyond that to take in the best available information on the species, revise the vegetation mapping to the extent that we could revise it and then go beyond what gap analysis does in terms of resolution and quality of information to do our modeling. There is modeling, a certain amount of methodology and statistical uncertainty although we haven't applied statistical modeling to the overall program. We can't compare it to scientific methodology but what we can compare it to is what we could accomplish in this period of time and how much better it is which is substantially and significantly better than what we started with.
Question: I don't see a lot of overlap in what is being recommended in the landscape view critical habitat versus what would be critical habitat with those six species.
Mr. Fromer: There is a substantial amount of overlap between the two; especially if we look at it in terms of acreage or square miles. The big areas, like the southern part of the Tucson basin and the far western areas that are the lower Sonoran desert areas that happen to not have a lot of habitat for our 55 species.
Question: What assurances do you have in place within the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan that will keep the habitat designations from being abused?
Mr. Fromer: These assurances are included in the plan and will be included in the implementing agreement as terms and conditions of the Habitat Conservation Plan.
Meeting Adjourn: 12 noon