The HPP State Council met in Glenwood Springs on March 17th and March 18th, 2015.

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1 The HPP State Council met in Glenwood Springs on March 17th and March 18th, Council Members Attending: Gary Visintainer, Terry Everhart, John Hardwick, Greg Jungman, Paul Crespin, Hunter Seim, Mick Davis, Robbie LeValley, Ken Morgan Staff Present: Pat Tucker, Teri Polley, Dean Riggs Guests: Perry Will. Ron Velarde, Darren Chacon :00 5:00 HPP Legislation Update and CPW Updates - Ron Velarde, Northwest Regional Manager HPP Re-authorization legislation has been delayed for the last three years. The items that the State Council requested to be included in the bill were sent to the Leadership Team and the LT supported your changes. Pat was asked to submit a decision item for FTE s to Steve Cassin. Currently each committee uses 250 to 300 hrs at $5000 and a permanent person solution is expected. The State Council does not have authority to spend HPP monies on permanent personal services and this has to come from statute or long bill. The money for these FTE s will come from game cash and not HPP funds. Pat will ask for 3 FTE s equal to 6000 hours - approximately one person for three committees. SB was carried by Senator Sonnenberg and passed in the Senate on Thursday, March 12 th sunsetting in 8 years. The testimony was short and supported by the CPW Director, CCA and Farm Bureau. The three items the State Council requested and were not carried are: 1) Increasing the purchase order limit to $10,000 2) Personal issue 3) Director appointment to committees. HPP is a very important program. Ron encouraged the council to keep thinking on large landscape projects. HPP minutes are on the CPW website: Discussion on the Pay to Play Program in the San Luis Valley. Hunter Education Bill in the Senate: Currently, a person has to obtain a hunter education certificate to be issued a license to hunt in Colorado. To get the certificate, the person needs to take a 10-hour hunter education course. The commission may create various ways to meet this requirement, including testing out of it or getting an apprentice certificate. A veteran may obtain a certificate without taking the course if the veteran passes a test. If the division verifies a person s

2 certificate, the person need not carry the certificate while hunting. The bill eliminates the requirement that the hunter education course consist of 10 hours of instruction. The bill also creates an apprentice program that allows a person who is at least 10 years of age to be issued a temporary certificate without hunter education if he or she is accompanied by a mentor who is at least 18 years of age and meets the certification requirements. There was some discussion inquiring how the local committees and the landowners communicate about hunting on their property. Pat confirmed that all committees ask if the landowner allows public hunting. CPW embarked on a strategic planning process to create a Division-wide strategic plan. Ron encouraged all to give their input to this plan through the website: Discussion: Trails, ATV s, motorcycles have 6-8 million dollars for developing trails. Before we develop a trail, the agency gives input. BLM has seasonal closures on some trails. Larimer County hunter ethics tell people to practice, but there is no place to practice. There are 5 million people in the state and recreation is a big part of their lives. The Forest Service looking at winter motorized use on trails. The CPW Colorado West Slope Mule Deer Strategy identified a list of seven strategic priorities based on input received from the public meetings conducted throughout the state. 1. Landscape-scale habitat management to improve habitat quality 2. Predator management where predation may be limiting deer survival 3. Protect habitat and mitigate development impacts 4. Reduce the impacts of highways on mule deer survival, movements and migration. 5. Reduce the impacts of human recreation on mule deer 6. Regulate doe harvest and provide youth opportunity below objective the agency is reducing doe tags 7. Maintain a strong ungulate population and disease monitoring program and conduct applied research to improve management of deer populations Sage Grouse issue west of I25 is a huge issue. Landowners, counties, BLM and the agency did everything possible to keep the Gunnison Sage Grouse from being listed and the FWS listed the bird. CPW spent 45 million in the past 15 years and it did not make a difference. Updates effects 4 committees (North Fork Gunnison, Uncompahgre, Mt Blanca) Pat and Dean are participating in the weekly grouse conference calls with an internal group. HPP projects were recognized and the FWS approved them even though these were not federally funded. NRCS is a federal nexus and this could change future projects. The federal dollars has to be connected to the project not the landowner. Pat will not be writing biological opinions. State Council does not do sage grouse conflict projects, but possible PJ encroachment projects and less sage brush projects. In future projects, the question must be asked Where is the project in relation to Gunnison Sage Grouse?

3 HPP Habitat Grant Application Presentations 2:30 - Two projects 30 minutes each 1) South Rifle Habitat Enhancement Project Toni Toelle 2) Calamity Basin Pine Restoration and Habitat Improvement Project - Eric Freels Discussion on applications The project has to be supported and a letter has to be included in the application. Pat mentioned the grant process this year was difficult; he didn t receive any applications the first 4 months. He received a few phone calls, but these two projects came together a week before the deadline. Funding level of the Forest Service and BLM and the loss of FTE s in these agencies limits manpower to get these large scale projects off the ground. Some of the local committee agency reps have created good projects. Pat has attended Forest Service and BLM leadership meetings to share HPP opportunities and the partnership available. Some of the committees may be asking for special project money. Ken talked about the new private land biologists and suggested Pat meet with them and suggested meeting with other NRCS folks. Ken also suggested inviting these biologists to the local committee meetings. NRCS has plenty of funding to go on private lands. Mick addressed HPP monies that are being returned. Pat talked about some of the easy issues that HPP has accomplished in the past 25 years fencing. These larger projects might be harder to get creative with but need to be promoted with the DWMs. Mick talked about how his committee is being proactive and they go to the landowners. 5:00 - Adjourn March 18, :00 12:00 Large Scale Habitat Grant Projects Discussion (cont): Amanda Dean No one presented and the application did not meet several of the HPP requirements including support from a local committee. Eric Freels This was a great project and overall well supported. The State Council was encouraged with the deer strategy and this type of project. The vegetative monitoring component of the project needs to improve. It was felt that photo points weren t adequate by themselves and that transects or another appropriate method should also be included. The funding will be for the state s 2016 fiscal year, which is from 7/1/15-6/30/16. All work will need to be complete and billed within this time frame. This work will require a task order between the State and the Forest Service. Pat will send the task order forms to Eric. This award is based on the information provided and assumes that the contributions from the project partners will be at the levels on the application. If these numbers change, Pat needs to be notified. The Uncompahgre HPP committee will enter this project information in the HPP database. The committee contact is Mike Surber. Also, as a part of the summer field tours, the State Council would like to visit this project area July 20 and 21. Toni Toelle This application indicated the Forest Service had $115,000 in cash funds that were to be used for hydro axe work in the project area. Based on this and that the Council

4 wants to emphasize active habitat manipulation, HPP funds will be restricted to hydro axe work only. The Council felt that directing the full $230,000 towards this would produce better results for all involved. The Council understands the timing issues associated with the project, but felt that the early September notice of the grant availability should have enabled the forest Service to develop this project and gain agency and partner support sooner and future grant applications need to keep this in mind. This also prevented the Forest Service from gaining financial support from either the local Grand Mesa HPP committee or the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep Society. They are both logical partners for this project. Since much of the project also benefits big horn sheep, the Council requested that the Forest Service make application for funding to RMBS. The funding will be for the state s 2016 fiscal year, which is from 7/1/15-6/30/16. All work will need to be complete and billed within this time frame. This work will require a task order between the State and the Forest Service. Pat will send the task order forms to Toni. This award is based on the information provided and assumes that the contributions from the project partners will be at the levels on the application. If these numbers change, Pat needs to be notified. The Grand Mesa HPP committee will enter this project information in the HPP database. The committee contact is Eric Freels. HPP Budget Update The statue authorizes the state council to allocate funds. All State Council members agreed to keep the budgets as the previous year after some discussion on the individual committee budgets. Pat will enter those budgets into the state s budgeting program for FY 16. Council discussed committees who frequently return money and Mick brought up the Gunnison area. Historically the Gunnison committee is returning 40% a year. Pat noted several reasons for this for all committees, ie. HPP has done a great job solving problems, HPP is more reactive, less snow usually means fewer HPP requests. Additionally, in the Gunnison area, the Gunnison Sage Grouse is affecting everything there and the Unit 54 travel mgmt. and recreation pressures also affects agency work and what is requested from HPP. Pat noted that two of the last three years the state council has only reverted $125,000 back to game cash. The Northern Larimer and the Republican Rivers committees still working but it s always been difficult for them to utilize their budgets given their specific situation. The Republican River would like to expand their boundary up the river and this may produce some more projects. There was some discussion regarding the NRCS helping the committees with projects. Pat said that historically NRCS reps were appointed to the committees through the approval process. NRCS is not a federal land management agency and, by statute, cannot be appointed to the committee. This doesn t mean that NRCS shouldn t be a valuable partner to HPP and landowners and they have technical expertise, field contacts and funding they just can t be an official voting member. Fencing Book Reprint Fencing with Wildlife Book has been reprinted. Ken Morgan requested more to distribute at 4H and Farm Shows. Purchased 4000 copies 32 boxes, and the updated version is on the website.

5 Roll Forwards Does the council want to continue the current schedule of keeping HPP projects on a fiscal year timeline while allowing for the very limited use of roll forwards as is done now, ie Burns and unforeseen late arising problems? If the Council wants to find more flexibility in project scheduling and wants to use roll forwards more, what are the criteria that should be used? The Forest Service specifically has asked about this for most of their projects, saying that the complicated federal system makes it extremely difficult to get things done in the state s fiscal year limits. In the past few years, this issue has come up as committees have a project that can t be done by June 30 th either because it s too big or because it didn t get proposed until too late in the year. To handle this, committees will likely approve it for the next fiscal year which causes them to start the new year with less funds than normal and could cause them to return money that they would have liked to have spent on the bigger project. While understanding the concerns, the State Council decided that they should focus on managing the HPP fund to limit the amount of money reverted to game cash. They were supportive of continuing roll forwards for burn projects and for the HPP Coordinator using his discretion for emergencies when appropriate and not allowing roll forwards for any/all projects regardless of circumstance. This was essentially how it has been operating. AWM Meeting April 14th April 14 th meeting with AWM s and DWM s about HPP. Ken will be present to represent the State Council. Bi-Annual Meeting The Bi-Annual meeting in Grand Junction was scheduled the week of December 7 th and 11 th Committee Recognition The State Council discussed how to handle recognizing HPP committee members for their years of service, special projects they have worked on and general appreciation for them wanting to be a part of the program. It was decided that a framed certificate with a knife becomes a part of the annual meeting and everyone will receive one from the State Council. The retirements should be done by the local committee and receive a plaque or a $75 non gift card. The Joe Gerrans award for will be used for special projects and long term recognition. Pat is working on general recognition guidance that will be in line with both state and federal requirements which will make all HPP awards available to all HPP members. The guidance will balance finding a sincere and worthwhile method of appreciation while being reasonable and consistent. Next Meeting Scheduled July 20 & 21 Montrose Field tour

6 Roundtable Gary - Good meeting; we covered a lot of important topics; I was disappointed about legislature. Terry - Good meeting! Greg I appreciate Ron Velarde being here and the reminder to make comment on the Strategic Plan. John I was disappointed in the legislature deal. Hunter - Great meeting; we covered a lot; glad for Sage Grouse discussion. Paul - Good discussion - all this is very important; Some of the statewide issues on the Forest Service are 1) the aerial surveys in the upper elevation showed mixed conifer is undergoing a large mortality; 2) some forests are starting some level of travel management in the winter months; 3) state water plan and collaborative groups. Mick - Good meeting. Ken - Good meeting. I am working with Dennis McKinney to video tape hydro axe projects for the website and any land manipulative projects. Pat - The 5% funds numbers will be available in a couple weeks. The challenge that we have is where we take this program on a longer term. HPP may have an opportunity to assist with the Mule Deer Strategy since part of the statute speaks to assisting the division to meet game management objectives. Certainly to talk about more in the future. I appreciate all your help and ideas.