February 23, 2018
Bay-Delta Offices, Sacramento
Participants:
Sally Rudd, Bruce DiGenero, You Chen Chao, Cathy Marcinkva, Cambell Ingram, Scott Hamilton, Josh Israel, David Mooney, Ken, Gabrielle, Mike Urkov, Mike Hendrick, Joe Hueblien, Lauren Hastings, Deanna Sereno, Brett Harvey, Katrina Harrison, Sheila Greene, Josh Callow, Griffon Hiss, Pablo Arroa, Victor Pacheco, Lynda Smith, Ben Geske, Jim Peterson, Adam Duarte
Review rapid prototyping process, upcoming schedule, and roles and responsibilities
Jim gave a presentation to provide an overview of the rapid prototyping process. Basically, this process will involve going through the structured decision making process, but quickly so that the group can identify problems and opportunities moving forward. He presented the timeline of goals for this process. Jim reviewed the guidance document that was sent out to the group for comments. He will send out a revised version to everyone for more feedback. He asked the group to provide feedback, as it is the group's document.
Action items
- Jim will send out a revised guidance for members document for feedback.
Review objectives, measureable attributes, and decision situation
Jim reviewed the draft problem statement. The problem statement is meant to provide sideboards for making decisions. He also reviewed the candidate objectives. These objectives are open to revision by the group. He then reviewed the spatial and temporal grain/extent of the problem. It was asked where the group can find the existing subregions. Lauren suggested a map in a report. Ben will find the report and share with the group. It was clarified that the extent is the boundaries of the decisions. Josh said some of the proposed actions are outside the current listed extent. For example, there are actions on the San Juaquin, so we may add those areas. Dave wanted to include the tidally influenced areas and suggested a map is a good way to clarify this. Ben will get the map from Lauren and add the extra parts to the delta, so we are all talking about the same areas. When reviewing the decision alternatives, Jim asked if they are new alternatives or if they are already going on (i.e., the decision is already made). If they are already going on, then that action is really just the way the system functions, not a real decision alternative. Dave said that there is a lot these that they already do, but he would like to evaluate if they should do it more, less, or more efficiently. An example could be the evaluation of the timing of an action. Someone suggested that we could use the history of actions as a way to gain confidence in any decision-support model that comes out of this process. Someone asked what the goal of using the structured decision making process here. There are decision being made in the Bay-Delta. Some of these decisions use the SDM process, and some decision do not. This is a pilot process to figure out how to put boundaries around this, how Reclamation invests in these alternatives, and what sequence of actions are ideal. This is a lot to process and the group would like to use this process to focus their efforts. Gabrielle asked if the group should thin alternatives out by focusing on actions that are within Reclamation's control. Jim suggested that this would be a good starting point, particularly for a pilot effort. Bruce discussed how the timing and frequency of some of these decisions are different and asked if the group should focus on alternatives that are on the same temporal scale. Dave said that a lot of these decisions are made on an annual scale. For example, export rate criteria for outflow are bigger decisions made annual but the day-to-day operations are variable. Scott is wondering about the scope. As we head into this reconsultation there are a number of actions that are funded by multiple agencies. Would these action be Reclamation decisions? Dave said that he would like to the group to think about Reclamation allocating funds for projects and what type of tool they would want to be used to make these decisions.
Action items
- Ben will find the report that has a map of the existing subregions, modify the map to include the total extent of these efforts, and send out to the group.
Refining objectives
Jim asked the group what they care most about for this pilot effort. Over the long-term process the group can include other species. It was clarified that the group is not constrained to these objectives after the pilot effort. That is, the group can bring back in some of the objectives that were tabled for this cycle or any other objectives after this pilot effort.
Objective: Water (improving the supply and reliability of water)
Jim asked for some clarification on the water objectives. Sheila said she will ask her water people, ask them to define some of these objectives better and send that information to Ben so that group has clarification. Scott said the water reliability report has projections that take into account all water restriction. They have a model that produces a metric called "average delivery capability". We can rerun this same type of model, but it is the long-term improvements, ~1922–2003 hydraulic period. Gabrielle said you can estimate metrics like "50% chance water delivery can meet 80% of its allocation". Jim said we could look at some potential action and look at what was actually delivered to see what did that action get us, so we want a metric we can forecast and monitor. Dave said he is comfortable that we can work with the operations folks to get what was actually delivered. He also things a long-term average export for wet and dry years are metrics we can interpret. Someone cautioned against just using exports. Scott agreed. He thinks something like exports south of the delta and an average delivery north of the delta would be useful. Sheila said the can talk to her operations folks about this. Dave said that minimum carryover storage could be another metric. Jim cautioned against this metric because it is a means objective. That is, if you have all the carry over storage in the world, but water deliveries were not met you would not be happy. He said that this process of having carryover storage to meet the water demands of the following year should be a process captured by the model, but not the objective. Deanna said water quality in the delta should also be a metric.
Action items
- Sheila will talk with water operations to provide some clarifications on the water objectives.
- Sheila will talk with water operations to get some clarifications on exports in south delta nd average delivery in north delta.
Follow-up from Sheila
Scott Peterson on the phone suggested exports for the SOD and deliveries for the NOD. I spoke to our operations expert and he agreed with these metrics. Also we recommend using Agricultural Service as the category for the SOD. The Agricultural Senior we think means the SOD exchange contractors. The Ag Service category should more than reflect impacts to the other categories like the exchange contractors and preserves for example.
Objective: Delta as a place
It was brought up that wetlands and agriculture are competing objectives. Do we really want more agriculture? What is better for the economy, agriculture or recreation? Gabrielle pointed out that it is okay to have competing objectives and it is important to have co-equal goals. Jim said that maintaining agriculture lifestyle is what they group was trying to capture with that objective. These values of people that live in this communities, not the dollars and cents. Cambell agreed. He said he might simplify to "agriculture viability". Recreation and tourism are good, but hard to measure. He might stick with overarching trends in agriculture production or maybe revenue by agriculture. That information is in annual reports. He said area maintenance is also a good metric. Gabrielle said we may consider the change in the number of people employed by agriculture. We may also include duck hunting or fishing as a metric in "Delta as a place". Cambell agreed but said that we might start with just agriculture for this pilot effort. Scott said that maybe population or number of businesses would be a better metric because agriculture is an option. People may not want to pursue an occupation in agriculture. Someone in the room agreed, stating that the delta has changed a lot and they think focusing on the area with agriculture could be a mistake. Jim asked if a survey for a sense of community would be a good metric down the road and discussed his experience when working with farmers on a goose projects as an example. People in the room responded favorably to this. Someone on the phone thought flood risk/protection is a quantifiable metric and thinks people would want to look at area used for agriculture production and revenue generated. Scott said we can monitor visitor days as a metric. Strength of community could be abundance and average household income. Cambell said the Delta Protection Commission (DPC) has economic indicator for the delta that maybe the group can use. He said that visitor days doesn't really exits. It is not tracked very well. Economic indicators from counties is hard to separate to just the delta areas. Overall, he thinks agricultural revenue, water quality, and agriculture production would cover most of these objectives.
Action items
- Ben will find the DPC report and share with the group.
Objective: Flood protection reliability (constraint) objectives
Army Corps of Engineers has some reliability metrics they use. The group agreed those would probably be useful for these efforts. Someone asked what insurance companies use. Cambell said the HMP and PL8499 Standards. Ben said the number of days in exceedance of set water quality regulations is a good metric. Scott said pesticides and measuring the exceedance of some particular standard are good metrics. Someone of the phone said that aquatic vegetation would be a good metric, because algal blooms are harmful and lead to issue for restricting boating (which would feedback into "Delta as a place"). Someone in the room said the Sacramento and San Joaquin Basin Plan (report) has metrics laid out for water quality and that that is a good place to start.
Action items
- Ben will find the Army Corps of Engineers reliability metrics for flood protection and share with the group.
- Ben will find the Sacramento and San Joaquin Basin Plan (report) and share with the group.
Refining decision alternatives
Dave wants the group to think about the major mechanisms people want to capture when they proposed these actions. He wants to think about alternative folks are going to ask him to fund. He said that we may focus on salmon for this pilot effort because there are parallel delta smelt efforts underway. Dave and Ben suggested we change some of the wording to match the NMFS RPA Actions. For example, "replace fish screens" should probably be "improve salvage efficiency". Brett suggested the group ask what is really imminent right now and maybe the expense of them and contrast a few alternatives. Dave said when looking at his "hot" actions, there are about 6 types of actions that are typically proposed, including (1) entrainment when fish go from the Sacramento to the Central Delta (DCC Gates, physical barrier, flow, Fremont weir), (2) salvage efficiency, (3) migration in Old and Middle River, (4) habitat restoration (North, Central, and South Delta) and different types, and (5) barriers in South Delta for migrating juveniles. He suggested we start with these to help guide this process to get the diversity of mechanisms.
The group then started to fill out the actions column in the spreadsheet (attached with these notes). This spreadsheet will be sent out for comments. Jim wants the group to think of actions or a set of actions they would do if they had all the permits and funding in the world. That is, "If only we did [this], we could meet all of our objectives in the delta."
Action items
- Victor will send report on relocating predators in the delta.
- Jim will send out the spread sheet with actions and objectives.
Develop conceptual management models
Jim would like everyone's input on what conceptual model they want to work off of. We will be modifying whichever conceptual model the group want to use in order for it to meeting their needs, but it will save time by not reinventing the wheel. Jim will send links to the Resiliency Strategy documents that have conceptual models for salmon and delta smelt. He will also share the CVPIA Science Integration Team's conceptual model for salmon.
Action items
- Jim will send links to the Resiliency Strategy documents that have conceptual models for salmon and delta smelt. He will also share the CVPIA Science Integration Team's conceptual model for salmon.
Updates
- The group decided that they will meet in person every 4th Friday of the month and have a call-in meeting every 2th Friday of the month (from 9AM to 11AM).
- The next phone call will be focused on conceptual models and data needs.
- Jim will ask Mike Urkov on the best way to put together a portal where everyone can access the meeting information.
- At the next meeting we will do a bit of a demo on what we can do to put meat on the conceptual model.
- Ben will share feedback he has gotten on who should be participating in these meetings but is not.