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Economic and dam related articles

More Than $500,000 in Savings Identified
in Council Fish and Wildlife Program

by Laura Berg
NW Fishletter, April 4, 2016

Four fish projects are the source of $566,915 in cost savings for fiscal year 2016, BPA's Bryan Mercier told the Northwest Power and Conservation Council March 8.

The Cost Savings Workgroup, whose members are from BPA and the Council, identified the projects to comply with the 2014 Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program mandate to fund "new fish and wildlife obligations from identifying savings within the current program."

The four projects are either closing out or reducing their budgets. The savings will be available in FY 2017, according to Mercier, who is BPA's business operations manager for the fish and wildlife program. The Council and BPA fiscal years end in September.

Mercier said $100,000 of the savings is "earmarked for the proposed blocked area habitat assessment." The Council will decide whether to fund the study of blocked area habitat above Grand Coulee at its April 12-13 meeting (see story 3).

"BPA plans to use the cost savings for a reserve in the Fish and Wildlife start-of-year budget for FY 2017," he said.

The four projects and their cost savings:

Mercier said BPA manages about 600 fish and wildlife contracts at any one time.

"The size of the program is about $300 million annually," he said, noting this figure excludes forgone power revenues.


Laura Berg
More Than $500,000 in Savings Identified in Council Fish and Wildlife Program
NW Fishletter, April 4, 2016

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