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February 12, 2003
Mr. Duane Shroufe, Director
Arizona Game and Fish Department
2221 West Greenway Road
Phoenix, Arizona 85023
Dear Duane:
On behalf of the members of the Wildlife
Conservation Council I would like to thank you for allowing us to be part of the Departments review of it’s wildlife water development program. As very interested partners, we appreciate the opportunity of assisting the Department in its effort to update and improve this extremely valuable program.
Four of our most experienced
volunteer/project oriented organizations have reviewed the work of your Wildlife Water Development Team. The Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society, Arizona Elk Society, Arizona Antelope Foundation and Arizona Mule Deer Association were eager to assist in this process. Their comments are included with this letter and reflect a strong belief in and support of your wildlife water development, monitoring and maintenance program.
These individual organizations met as a group and reviewed each other’s comments. It was decided, in order to expedite the comment and review process, we
would forward the concerns and recommendations of the Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society. Their long history of participation in the water development program provided the most in depth analysis of the issues identified by the Development Team. We also felt they captured the concerns and suggestions of the other participating organizations in their comments.
Along with the Sheep Society’s comments we
decided to record the general observations made at the group meeting. These observations address important issues identified in the Development Teams report and reflect unanimous concern or support by all of the participating organizations. These observations have also been included for your review.
We wish to thank Fred Bloom and his team
for their extensive review and sincerely appreciate the opportunity to comment on the draft report they authored. Clearly the Department has shown a willingness to reach out to its partners and enlist their knowledge and support to help shape this important wildlife program. Once again, thank you and we look forward to further opportunities to assist in this process.
Always Working for Wildlife
Pete Cimellaro, President,
Wildlife Conservation Council
Group Meeting Observations, February 11th, 2003
1. High priority: Completion of a statewide, comprehensive database of allwaters available to wildlife.
We believe this database will go a long way toward improving the Departments ability to identify the need for water or
towards eliminating the unnecessary duplication of waters, which may already exist in proximity to proposed new developments. The cost savings to the Department and its Sportsmen Conservation Partners would be a tremendous benefit.
2. High priority: Establish, promote and market a clear vision regarding the benefits of water to wildlife. The Department needs to do a
better job of communicating the benefits of water to its internal and external customers. Without their buy-in all other efforts will be less than effective.
3. High priority: The Department needs to have more control and involvement in the planning, coordination and compliance processes. We often find ourselves in
unnecessary delays and with increased costs because of poor planning and lack of interagency coordination. The Department must be more assertive, particularly in the NEPA and
wilderness compliance processes that affect many of our redevelopment projects.
4. Remove all references to an “informal moratorium on new catchments” from the draft. We strongly believe that the completion of the Water Development Teams report and
implementation of its recommendations will focus
the program squarely on redevelopment of existing catchments. The Sportsmen Conservation Organizations strongly support the prioritization of redevelopments. However, we do not want to be precluded from building new (needed) catchments if this is in the best interest of wildlife. References in the Departments own procedures could prove costly in a debate with those that discount the value of water for wildlife.
5. Do not use “Special Tag Funds” for NEPA compliance documentation. In keeping with the spirit, that special tag funds should be used to enhance wildlife programs, we do not
feel this type of project expenditure can be justified. It is the responsibility of the agencies to do their jobs and by doing so, support wildlife.
6. Do not limit the use of ”Special Tag Funds” by requiring they be spent only on HPC projects. We would strongly protest any attempt to limit the use of special tag funds, by
requiring they must only be used in the Habitat Partnership Committee process. The Special Tag Program was the vision of
dedicated sportsmen who wanted to do more for wildlife. The Special Tag legislation established a direct link between the Commission, Sportsmen and the Department. This association has worked well, as intended, with wildlife as the primary beneficiary. Any changes that alter this process must be measured by its benefit to wildlife, not by its convenience to those involved or by the addition of unintended beneficiaries. All sound projects that benefit wildlife should be available for funding with special tag funds, regardless of their genesis.
7. Whenever possible use the Sportsmen Conservation Organizations (private sector) to assist the water development, monitoring and maintenance program. This
could streamline procedures, cut costs and make use of a vast amount of expertise that is available and willing to participate. We need to be creative (think outside the agency) in addressing the many needs of this entire program.
8. Standardization of project types, terms and materials. The success ofevery project can be traced to the communication skills of the participants. We would
like to see standardized terms for our discussions, identify and
name specific types of projects and provide a complete list of all materials used, so that the participants knew exactly what was being said, being ordered, being built and being expected as a final product. To accomplish this understanding among the participants we would suggest having a meeting among all parties to discuss and develop this glossary of names, terms and materials.
We made many observations in our group discussion, these had the highest priority and we were unanimous in their support.
Compiled by Pete Cimellaro
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