CALFED Science Program Review Panels
A critical element to the CALFED Science Program is its scientific review of all CALFED Program components. Water supply reliability and use efficiency, water quality, ecosystem restoration, and flood management and levee stability all benefit from periodic reviews by CALFED Science Program established independent review panels that help insure that the investments being made and results being achieved are supported by the best available scientific knowledge.
Independent Review of the Delta Risk Management Strategy
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) has conducted an assessment of risks caused by Delta levee failures and the impacts of that risk to California's water supply and other statewide assets. The Delta Risk Management Strategy (DRMS) identifies these risks based on 50, 100, and 200-year projections (Phase 1), and evaluates strategies for alleviating them (Phase 2).
DWR requested that the CALFED Science Program coordinate an independent review of the DRMS study. The DRMS Independent Review Panel (IRP), consisting of 9 internationally renown scientists and engineers, provided an unbiased evaluation of the technical methods used, analysis, findings, and conclusions of the DRMS study. The DRMS study's authors praised the IRP's review as critical to the process of supporting the science behind the study.
Independent Review of OCAP Biological Opinion
Independent Review of the National Marine Fisheries Service's OCAP Biological Opinion In 2005, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) requested that the CALFED Science Program perform and independent review of the science underlying the NMFS biological opinion for the coordinated operations, criteria, and plan (OCAP) of the Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project.
The 2005 review panel, consisting of 6 scientist acknowledged for their understanding of the effects of water project operations on anadromous salmonids, focused on the technical aspects of the NMFS biological opinion and assessment, not its conclusions. The panel assessed whether NMFS had used the best available scientific and commercial information available in forming its biological opinion. The panel evaluated the models, analysis, results, and assumptions that formed the basis for NMFS's assessment of the proposed long-term water operations.
NMFS highlighted the value of the independent review for its ability to bring an objective, unbiased review the opinion's scientific integrity, and the panel's use of a transparent public process.