From: Edmund Oborny [mailto:eoborny@
]
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2016 8:57 AM
To: Roel Lopez
Cc: Brad Littrell (blittrell@
); Charles Randklev
Subject: Re: CPA Colorado River Mussel Task and Budget.docx

Happy Monday Morning, Roel, Brad, and Charles,
Thanks for the quick turnaround and explanation on the phone Friday afternoon. Upon review and some
thought, here are our initial thoughts.
Item 1 is fine for PM, but including reporting seems a bit of a stretch for $50k knowing the level of detail that
the Comptroller requires relative to meetings, conference calls, documentation, etc. I suggest putting this at
$100k with $75k to BW and $25K to TAMU.
 
It would be hard to justify increasing the PM amount given that each party is responsible for ”data reduction, analysis, 
and reporting required per individual project, with budget coming out of that task”.  This task seems to be simply 
compiling information at this point.  Increasing this amount also would serve to impact the amounts used for applied 
research, which is in my mind a priority for the project. 

We are fine with the next 6 items and breakdown which other than the field surveys go 100% to TAMU. It will
need to be understood that each of these tasks include the data reduction, analysis, and reporting required per
individual project, with budget coming out of that task.
 
We attempted to find a split with BioWest in all tasks were you are suited to perform.  The genetic and aquatic work is 
squarely in our lane and supported at the Dallas center where we have both a genetics and aquatic labs capable of 
delivering this tasks.  AgriLife has invested nearly $300K in lab equipment in the last year alone for the latter.  Unless I 
missed something, BioWest has neither capability. 

On population demographics, $10k to dust off and use the 2-d models to "quantify persistence of suitable
mussel habitat for...." is not feasible. If you want to keep this evaluation, it would need to be at around $75k to
really do justice to a thorough evaluation. In my opinion, there is a lot of existing info on this topic that would
be valuable to tap and show the Comptroller that we are using what's out there. This also would make LCRA
smile as they already spent a ton of money to develop all that info.
 

1

 I really like the mark-recapture task, but of everything else, my guess is Robert might see this one as gravy
being the least likely to have a definitive answer for the SSA but yet has the largest budget of applied research
activities.
If given the option between the 2‐d models and mark‐recapture work, both Charles and I believe the mark‐recapture 
work would be higher priority.  Furthermore, what is important here to pursue what FWS also believes they need for 
their assessment.  How does updating the e‐flow data supersede mark recapture information?  One could argue the e‐
flow data has currently been collected and available, though dated, and could be used in its current form.  Afterall, 
something is better than nothing. Conversely, you can't make that argument with the mark recapture task because that 
information is nonexistent in Texas and critical to an SSA.  Without mark recapture, how do you anticipate coming up 
with survival and reproductive estimates for a viability analyses?  Population demographic estimates on Texas mussels is 
key to an SSA.  Finally, this is the only task (mark recapture) that serves to directly provide such information. If the 
interest is to cut back on the amount, we certainly can reduce the effort to a one‐year study. If you would like to keep 
the e‐flow work, we could also reallocate the portion of the mark recapture for BioWest to the e‐flow task, and simply 
reduce the overall effort for mark recapture as noted above to save $$$.   
 

So, one option would be to cut Mark and Recapture out entirely which saves $185k. That would be somewhat
offset by the $50k added to PM/Reporting and the $65k added to population demographics, but still would show
a cost savings and get the total budget down to $960,000 before the IDC, so $1,056,000 with IDC over two
years. Showing that the project is really under $1mill before IDC may just get this sole sourced. The
breakdown would be TAMU - $635k and BW - $325k which when including IDC is a 70 / 30 TAMU to BW
split.
 
What you are proposing above makes me nervous for two reasons.  First, I will need to get approval from AgriLife 
Leadership in writing why the split starts to move >30% to a subcontractor.  This requires a written justification from the 
sponsor.  I don’t want to go down that road.  Second, and just as important, I will have to justify why BioWest is being 
sole sourced here as a private sub‐contractor.  They are going to ask what does BioWest bring that some other 
contractor can’t?   There are other contractors with equal skill sets.  We can raise or lower the overall project amount 
but the 70:30 ratio is important to avoid the need to get approval. 

A second bracketed option would be to just include the mark and recapture study and other recommendations
that I proposed. So then the total budget would be $1,145,000 before IDC or $1,259,500 after IDC. The
breakdown on this would be TAMU $750k and BW $390k which when including IDC would be essentially a
70 / 30 split. Under this option, it would likely go out for bid which is fine by me. Not worried about that at
all. My only concern is the Comptroller might do what it did with one of the last bids on the street that came
back over what they wanted to spend and just killed the project instead of negotiating.
I think we should stick to keeping the project budget within Robert’s target.  We need to make the above work out.  If 
the numbers above don’t work out for you, I completely understand.  We can go a different direction if needed.   
 
 

Anyhow, something to ponder.
Cheers!
Ed

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