IM OR 98-101, Attachment 1: Summary of Survey and Manage Actions

What follows is a description of the actions that the agencies will immediately initiate. These are not listed in priority order. These actions have been approved by the Regional Interagency Executive Committee (RIEC) and have Interagency Scientific Committee concurrence.

1.	Establish an oversight team to guide the agencies' efforts to accomplish the tasks described below over the next couple of years. The team would be chartered by the RIEC to accomplish the tasks described below, including: securing resources across Districts, Forests, and other agency offices to maximize work accomplishments; identifying critical shortfalls and needs that cannot be met with existing resources; communicating with the field offices; and reporting to the RIEC on status and accomplishments. The team will develop a charter which fully identifies and scopes these tasks, along with time frames, staff requirements, and budget. The charter will serve as a contract between the team and the RIEC to accomplish the workload. Team members will report directly to Bill Bradley (BLM), Bob Devlin (Forest Service), and Russ Peterson (Fish and Wildlife Service). The Regional Ecosystem Office will continue to be involved in this effort in their role as staff supporting the RIEC and will maintain their role of evaluating the process and products for the RIEC. As regards this effort, the Survey and Manage (S&M) Core Group will report to their respective agencies, through the project leaders, providing technical expertise as needed and providing peer review and counsel to the various efforts.
2.	*Immediately provide guidance to the field on the Component 2 requirements.*
	a.	Issue an Instruction Memorandum that clarifies the interpretation of the words "implementation of ground disturbing activities." Clarify the different wording "authorized or implemented in FY 1999 or later" that appears in the Record of Decision, p. 37.
	b.	Establish a system to answer field questions on implementation.
3.	*Finish protocols and management recommendations.* Development, review, and revision of regional survey protocols and management recommendations have been in progress for some time, but additional assistance is needed to complete the task. Norm Gartley (BLM) and Sheila Martinson (Forest Service) will organize and direct the effort to complete protocols and management recommendations by December 30, 1998.
4.	*Develop a regional strategy to prioritize and assist in completion of Component 2 field survey workload.* The questionnaire sent to field units noted that many of the units were having trouble completing surveys that were technically feasible because of the lack of training and/or the lack of trained personnel to conduct surveys. To minimize program impacts, critical shortages need to be identified and resources made available, to the extent possible, on a regional basis.
	a.	Work with the Districts and Forests to verify needs and to prioritize the most critical survey needs.
	b.	Assign staff experts to conduct training and/or assist with surveys. Design a strategy (geographic or other) to accomplish this work.
5.	*Information Consolidation and Analysis* This is the key step for the Phase II analysis effort. This is the information that would be necessary to determine whether the species should remain in its current strategy, move to another strategy, or could be removed from the list. It is also the information we need to investigate moving Protection Buffer species into the S&M strategies. Regional staff and specialists will work with analysts to determine the information needed. This also includes immediate work to develop the process and criteria for the analysis. Elements for analysis will need to be identified in September 1998 to assist in data input. To complete this within the time frames described above, field staff, regional information management staff, and taxa specialists will be directed to make this their top priority. This will impact their work on other projects, including field visits as this is the field season for many species.
6.	Prepare an Environmental Assessment on changing the schedule with existing information for the 33 species for which surveys are not technically feasible. The resulting decision would be implemented for BLM through Plan Maintenance and for the Forest Service with a non-significant Forest Plan Amendment. We will operate in accord with the existing direction until the schedule changes are in effect.
	a.	Develop an Environmental Assessment with a small interdisciplinary team plus support for publishing, public comment, review, and process management. This will be an interagency effort and managed at the state/regional level.
	b.	Public outreach will occur using District and Forest planning processes and public contacts.
7.	Address the survey feasibility issue for the 33 species; if possible, develop survey methods for some of these species. Personnel and/or contracts will be required to address the feasibility issues for the 33 deferred species. This effort will attempt to resolve field identification problems, better define habitat needs, produce species descriptions, and reexamine draft survey protocols.

Form a Team to conduct a thorough review of S&M and Protection Buffer Standards and Guidelines do the appropriate environmental analysis.
This team would be responsible for scoping, preparing the appropriate environmental analysis (either in-house or through contract), public comment analysis, and preparation of the Record of Decision. The environmental analysis is expected to cover: (1) changing the status of those 33 species which are still "not technically feasible to survey" so that more general surveys, rather than pre-project surveys, would be required; (2) moving species among S&M components or removing species from particular components including adding protection for those less secure than originally thought in the Northwest Forest Plan or removing from some components those species found to be more secure; (3) merging the S&M and Protection Buffer requirements; (4) clarifying the way species are to be evaluated and moved among S&M components or dropped from this standard and guideline in the future; and (5) strengthening the adaptive management aspects of this program. We anticipate that this analysis process may require an EIS and be implemented through a plan amendment by BLM and as a non-significant amendment by the Forest Service.