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October 27, 2003 (Portland, Ore.) — The Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) initiated its Model Watershed Program this week by signing two 10-year agreements to support long-term and monitoring-intensive watershed restoration efforts in Idaho's lower Kootenai River and the Chinook River in southwest Washington.

In agreements with the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho and Sea Resources (a community-based watershed restoration organization located in Chinook, Wash.), BEF has committed to provide scientific oversight, an independent peer review panel, and at least $500,000 in support of restoration and quantitative monitoring efforts over a 10-year period.

With its Model Watershed approach, BEF is betting that long-term investments in scientifically accountable restoration programs will prove more effective than short-term and piecemeal project grants scattered widely among Pacific Northwest watersheds.

"We hope this cooperative commitment to a long-term and monitoring-intensive approach will provide a model for science and community-based watershed restoration that can be replicated elsewhere across the region and within the watershed community as a whole," said BEF's President, Angus Duncan.

BEF's long-term approach represents a departure from conventional watershed funding. As with many grant makers, BEF initially supported a range of short-term watershed projects across the Pacific Northwest.

According to Jim Lichatowich, BEF's Watershed Project Committee Chairman, "BEF's early short-term funding tended to perpetuate piecemeal restoration strategies and produce projects with uncertain restoration objectives and inadequate monitoring and evaluation capacity. The short-term approach severely hindered our attempts to develop and support science-based watershed restoration programs."

"In order to ensure that BEF's watershed investments reinforce science-based and accountable restoration practices, it became clear that we must develop, implement, and provide support for a long-term and monitoring-intensive approach," added Duncan.

Sue Ireland, Director of the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho's Fish and Wildlife Department, praised the change in funding methodology: "BEF's commitment to a long-term approach gives us the ability to rigorously track the outcomes of our restoration actions and allows us to demonstrate that restoration investments are producing the desired results."

Sea Resources' Director Robert Warren concurred, adding that, "with the relative unavailability of funding to support long-term monitoring, BEF's Model Watershed approach and long-term support are critical to our ability to base restoration projects on tangible results rather than 'best guess' methodology."

Over time, BEF intends to seek out additional resources and apply its own funds to support 10-12 long-term Model Watershed programs across the Pacific Northwest.

About BEF
The Bonneville Environmental Foundation, a non-profit organization, was established in 1998 to restore watershed ecosystems and further the development and use of new renewable energy resources. Through revenues generated from the sales of green power products, BEF funds projects that restore damaged watersheds and support new renewable energy projects from solar, wind and biomass. BEF pioneered the sale of Green Tags in 2000 and has helped establish national standards for certification and trading. Created by regional environmental groups and the Bonneville Power Administration, the Foundation operates collaboratively with but independent of both.

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