Division of Outdoor Recreation staff and Division of Wildlife Resources officials outlined how they will evaluate two Clean Vessel Act (CVA) applications and 19 Boating Access grant proposals at the Boating Advisory Council meeting on Dec. 2.

Jorge Vasquez, recreation grant analyst, said the CVA supports pump-out stations, holding tanks, dump stations and public education. Craig Walker, assistant chief of fisheries at the Division of Wildlife Resources, said Boating Access grants fund ramps, parking, fish-cleaning stations and other infrastructure. Walker said the division receives about $900,000 from federal excise and related funds and Outdoor Recreation supplies the required 25% match, yielding roughly $1.2 million for projects in a typical year.

Staff presented a scoring rubric that uses a 1–7 Likert scale where 1 equals very poor and 7 equals excellent. The rubric evaluates environmental need and deferred maintenance, clean boating impact, budget and match, operations and maintenance, education and outreach, planning and partnerships, and completeness of attachments. Jorge said staff will provide each reviewer a Google scoring form (one form per application) and a shared tracking sheet that shows which packages a reviewer has completed.

Members discussed logistics and timing. Council members said reviewing 19 applications during the holiday period is a time commitment and asked whether staff would prescreen for basic eligibility. Craig said the current submissions are "raw" and that staff would provide eligibility guidance after additional internal review, and that council scoring is advisory while agency staff make final funding decisions.

Members also debated how to score "benefit to existing fish and wildlife resources," with some noting that metrics tied to shoreline erosion and impacts from larger motorized craft may not capture benefits from paddlecraft or sailing. Craig and others suggested the rubric may be refined in future cycles to avoid disadvantaging nonmotorized projects and to split public-benefit and fish-resource benefit into separate tracks.

Staff described reporting and record-keeping: responses to Google forms will be emailed to reviewers to allow later edits and the division will extract responses for the scoring meeting. Craig noted the federal reporting system TRACS has a two‑year lag in recorded outcomes, which can delay measurable results from completed projects. He cited recent investments at Strawberry Reservoir as an example where the public will see improvements in the near term.

Next steps: staff will share full application folders, scoring matrices and the tracking sheet with council members; reviewers should complete the Google form for each application they evaluate. A formal scoring meeting will follow staff’s distribution of eligibility notes and compiled responses.