Closing session discussion, review and comments

Friday, February 9, 2007 - 11:00 AM to 12:45 PM

<< Previous \| Home \| Next >>
In this session:
Closing Session Discussion	Rod Wittler
Symposium Review and Comments

Closing Session Discussion

Presentation [PPS - 2.1 mb]

Rod Wittler presented his impression of summary. He appreciated the input of distant experts and that questions were focused. How do individual studies relate to overall progress toward program goals and efficacy of progress? We need to keep focused on this. Prior to this symposium, we may not have all been aware of all the data and progress being made. Those who sat through it all deserve a badge of honor. We want to provide financial resources to help.

The data on habitat is good--what it is, how to measure, why it is important. Refuge is clearly important. We need a lot more good habitat soon. We rely on the scientist to tell us how to get this.

The intermingling and side bar conversations that occurred during this symposium are important. Ecosystem understanding is important and is better than single-species management.

This is adaptive management and a grand experiment-create fry rearing habitat. Limiting factors are many. Are we blindly following ROD? No, but we need to test hypotheses. We need to also assess hatchery, Klamath River, and disease. We need to know how to reject hypotheses. Don't want to get unfocused.

General questions as posed by the audience:

What are key findings so far?

It has taken longer to get things going in the TRRP and to get partnership roles worked out. But now progress seems to be going better. We need to keep asking questions, our ideas are evolving. High flows may look different and this allows us to ask new questions. We need to make a closer link between the fluvial processes and habitat. There was some naiveté about high flows. Maybe they are not as powerful as we thought. Flow releases seem to be successful for temperature controls. Habitat in upper river may be tough. Hardest thing to change is human nature. We tend to stay in camps. Everyone seems to have been doing their own research. This symposium seems to be one of the first times everyone has an opportunity to hear each other's work. Integration is hard. Opportunities for integration and testing of hypotheses may be increasing now that science is getting going. How long does it take to make the adaptive management changes? Could be 5 to 20 years. Encourage the testing the life-stage mortality rates explicitly. Adaptive management should be done sooner than on a 5- to 20-years cycle.

While the presentations were good, the question and answer sessions were particularly good, especially those that were policy-relevant. This is a big step forward.

Whether effects or progress is being made is partially dependent on the expectations. Habitat will not likely develop in a single or two flow events. It may be too early to answer these questions.

A near-term effort on creating the geomorphic-based habitat map would be very important. We can get easily distracted by the IAP and budget issues. These ideas can be promoted forward as the future budgets are laid out.

Has logging in the watershed been assessed?

It hasn't been ignored, but the TRRP is a mainstem-fisheries program. So the TRRP is a "filter." The Trinity River Watershed Council is looking at the entire watershed and may be considering logging. The situation in Grass Valley Creek with Champion Lumber "doing damage and then walking away" should not be allowed to be repeated again. The Forest Service is one of the largest landowners in the area, but they have been doing little logging. More work has been on forest stand management for forest health.

Hoopa Tribe's comment:

There is a lot of value in getting the scientists together. There had been an idea of getting monitoring groups together every year for sometime. The interest of the Hoopa Tribe is getting fish in nets. One remaining issue is that the TRRP program is being funded at a reduced level.

^ TOP

Symposium Review and Comments

Symposium attendees were asked to fill out comment cards listing their overall impressions, suggested improvements, and general comments. All comments received are shown below. Comments are organized into general themes that emerged from the cards received.

Overall Symposium Impressions

Excellent Job! (several comments)
Extremely worthwhile 3 days. Seeing data, analyses, and results from science within and outside the program that are relevant to the current and future needs and actions of the program has been invaluable. The exchange of ideas is encouraging and can only lead to better communication and integration of goals.
I really appreciated the updates on ALL the current monitoring and research of TRRP.
Many issues brought up are central to our adaptive management program. I really enjoyed the disparate views and the progress in evaluating established targets of the program.
Terrific crash course in Trinity River issues and state of science
Really interesting presentations, discussions, etc. Thank you. I hope it happens again next year.
Do it again. Word will travel that this was a great symposium.
Symposium showed some of us that things are being questioned and discussed.
Inconvenient timing with everything else going on but valuable to attend.
Great to see the SAB members there.

Comments on Symposium Content

Physical process investigations are well organized and progressing well. However, the fisheries components of program remains weak. It is absolutely essential to identify the relative importance of different sources of mortality per life stage of salmonids. Until this is done, all information will remain disjunctive and ineffective.
Lots of interesting discussion about how to proceed with bank rehabilitation sites. I hope the decision makers and designers think about some of the comments and suggestions that arose.
When discussing fish response to ROD flows and water temperature, it is important to present each component simultaneously in the context of timing. Josh Strange was the only one to do so.
Is there any data collected post construction of settling ponds that indicates fine sediment limits egg-fry survival? Is there a quantitative goal for the TRRP fine sediment reduction?
The biotic response to the timing and shape of the descending limb of the spring hydrograph suggests a more natural hydrograph would be optimal.
The "summer run" Chinook appear to be increasing and could possibly be related to hatchery practices. From a management perspective, do we want to change flow schedules to accommodate a run that may not be a historical component of the Trinity River Chinook populations?
Invite presentations from people conducting tributary surveys e.g. south fork, new river.

Comments on Symposium Agenda

Well organized. The information presented covered the range of questions and program components.
Good integration of disciplines and ideas by having people in one place and mixing disciplines within sessions.
Great choice of speakers.
Liked diversity and perspective gained by including presenters outside of TRRP and long term contractors.
Include audience introductions. Everyone should wear name cards every day.
Avoid making any one day too long as one looses focus.
Avoid scheduling symposium at the same time as the Northwest River Restoration Symposium.
Don't finish on a Friday. We need to have everyone together at the end.
Combine sediment and geomorphic talks.
Breaks were long enough to allow side conversations.
Provide more time for Q&A.
Consider nightly evening socials, possibly with talk, to encourage more collaboration.
Consider plenary sessions with invited papers to be presented. Have topic days based on plenary sessions.
Consider some concurrent sessions to allow for longer, more complete talks
Communication is the purpose of the meeting. Evening social worked well. To facilitate additional conversations, have longer breaks and schedule all lunches and dinners at a common location.
More integrated talks (blending of disciplines and evaluations of effectiveness).

Comments on Symposium Presentations

Presentations should be lengthened to allow more time for including methodologies (and not just results) to be presented and discussed.
Presentations should be brief. Too much focus on methods. Limit conclusions to one slide.
Presentations should be 20 minutes with 10 minutes of Q&A.
Allow presenters to go over an extra minute to give their conclusions and recommendations, especially considering there is open session afterwards.
Stick to the schedule.
Integration could be made clearer.
Readability of several presentations could be improved.

Comments on Symposium Open Sessions

Open sessions worked well. Panel discussions were good.
Panels / open sessions allowed time to think about and ask follow up questions. Open sessions were especially important due to the short time for presentations.
Many questions for the panels were directed at the "Program" not the individual presenters. Consider a member of the TAMWG, RIG, or from the TRRP office to answer these general program management / direction questions.
Moderator should defer to panel and not answer questions himself.
Make sure ALL panel members have a change to talk. Don't let one person monopolize the session.

Comments on Symposium Venue and Setup

Provide coffee and a variety of other beverages. Provide healthier snacks than doughnuts. Charge a fee if needed to provide these.
Venue had good open space.
Venue had poor acoustics and poor bathrooms.

Other Symposium Comments

Symposium should be videotaped and DVD copies made available.
Distribute CD of proceedings from first symposium with abstracts, Q&A, and presentations.
Presentations should be made available through the program website.
Provide restaurant names and locations.
Provide hard copies of presentations to facilitate note taking.
Don't have a budget meeting the same day as the symposium to allow everyone to see it all. TRRP managers and TMC members should be here.
More advance notice to attendees / presenters.
I appreciate the dedication of Reclamation, the Tribes, and other State and Federal agencies to implementing and monitoring the Program.

^ TOP