{"schema_version":1,"research_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp05_external_evaluation_20260803","source_assessment_id":"layer_decay_and_expiration_management__environmental_climate:P4:v0","cell_id":"layer_decay_and_expiration_management__environmental_climate","search_queries":["site:publications.usace.army.mil ER 1110-2-240 water control management temporary deviation expiration tracking","site:usbr.gov drought contingency plan operating criteria temporary drought response actions expire review","site:gao.gov water utilities outdated procedures drought operations conflicting guidance","reservoir operating rules temporary deviations version control research","site:gao.gov reservoir water control manuals outdated not updated operations","site:usace.army.mil water control manual outdated update reservoir operations report","site:usbr.gov \"temporary operating\" drought reservoir \"supersede\"","dam reservoir operators outdated water control manual emergency deviation audit","ER 1110-2-240 2016 pdf planned deviations water control manual approval duration temporary","ER 1110-2-8156 2018 water control manuals review database pdf","USACE policy planned deviations water control plan temporary deviation tracking report","site:nist.gov SP 800-128 configuration change control baseline rollback testing operational technology","site:nist.gov SP 800-82 configuration management backup restore control system change management","site:isa.org IEC 62443 configuration management backups restore industrial control systems","\"Reclamation refills Truckee reservoirs early\" USACE April 2026","site:spk.usace.army.mil Truckee planned major deviation 1985 Water Control Manual 2026","Truckee basin 1985 water control manual planned deviation 2026","Reclamation States Emergency Drought Relief Act 1991 Public Law 102-250 enacted date Title II","site:congress.gov 102-250 drought relief act enacted"],"sources":[{"source_id":"S1","title":"Army Corps of Engineers: Additional Steps Needed for Review and Revision of Water Control Manuals (GAO-16-685)","publisher":"U.S. Government Accountability Office","url":"https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-16-685","source_class":"GOVERNMENT_OR_REGULATOR","publication_date":"2016-07-26","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["Corps districts use water-control manuals to guide reservoir releases, making currency operationally consequential.","GAO found reviews were often informal and undocumented, divisions did not consistently track whether manuals reflected actual operations, and officials said additional manuals needed revision.","GAO warned that without tracking, the Corps could not identify projects whose operations might not reflect current conditions.","The recommendations were later closed as implemented: USACE revised guidance and created a centralized manual-status database in 2018, materially limiting any claim that inventory and review tracking are novel."]},{"source_id":"S2","title":"ER 1110-2-240: Water Control Management","publisher":"U.S. Army Corps of Engineers","url":"https://www.publications.usace.army.mil/Portals/76/Publications/EngineerRegulations/ER_1110-2-240.pdf","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"2016-05-30","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["Water-control plans should be reviewed at least every ten years and revised when hydrologic, climatic, physical, socioeconomic, or environmental conditions warrant.","Significant, recurrent, or prolonged deviations can trigger formal plan revision.","Planned deviations already require advance approval, purpose, duration, alternatives, consequence analysis, and evaluation of effects on project purposes.","Division commanders or delegated qualified officials approve deviations, with water-management and dam-safety coordination.","Deviations must remain within project authorization and existing authority."]},{"source_id":"S3","title":"ER 1110-2-8156: Preparation of Water Control Manuals","publisher":"U.S. Army Corps of Engineers","url":"https://www.publications.usace.army.mil/Portals/76/Users/182/86/2486/ER_1110-2-8156_.pdf?ver=2018-11-29-162855-293","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"2018-09-30","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["USACE policy calls for water-control manuals and plans to be continually reviewed, updated, and adjusted.","The regulation requires documentation of reviews and current status, records of changes, dated revisions, and an official central-repository copy kept current.","Chapter 7 must be updated after a water-control-plan change, and complete updates should incorporate new hydrologic and other information.","The manual format already connects authorities, operational instructions, drought plans, deviations, fish and wildlife requirements, and effects of operations."]},{"source_id":"S4","title":"Title II—Drought Contingency Planning, Reclamation States Emergency Drought Relief Act","publisher":"Bureau of Reclamation","url":"https://www.usbr.gov/drought/legislation/title2.html","source_class":"GOVERNMENT_OR_REGULATOR","publication_date":"1992-03-05","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to prepare cooperative drought-contingency plans with federal, state, tribal, local, private, and public entities.","Plans may include temporary supplies, conservation actions, transfers, reservoir storage, and fish-and-wildlife supplies.","Plans must comply with applicable federal and state law and include periodic review provisions to remain adequate for current conditions.","The statute identifies a credible federal authorizer and technical-assistance or planning-funding pathway, but not authority for an automated system to retire operating rules."]},{"source_id":"S5","title":"North Santiam Watershed Drought Contingency Plan Update Grant Application","publisher":"Santiam Water Control District","url":"https://www.usbr.gov/drought/docs/2022/dcp/DRP-006_SantiamWaterCouncil_508.pdf","source_class":"OFFICIAL_ORGANIZATION_DATA","publication_date":"2022-04-20","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["A named water-control district proposed updating its drought plan to address emerging concerns and streamline operational, administrative, and update processes.","The applicant reported that the existing framework was cumbersome, annual reviews and actions had been sporadic, and implementation momentum suffered from limited human infrastructure, funding, and overlapping emergencies.","The plan prescribed five-year review, while the applicant sought to evaluate post-drought review frequency and procedures.","Santiam Water Control District led the effort; the City of Salem committed $20,000, the district committed $5,000, and total planned project resources were $50,000, including federal support.","The proposal involved a two-year update, qualified consultants, stakeholder work groups, and Reclamation review, providing a cost analogue but not a price for production-control integration."]},{"source_id":"S6","title":"Completed Studies: Truckee Water Management Option Pilot Viability Assessment","publisher":"Bureau of Reclamation","url":"https://www.usbr.gov/watersmart/bsp/completed.html","source_class":"OFFICIAL_ORGANIZATION_DATA","publication_date":"2025-05-30","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["Reclamation evaluated alternatives to the 1985 Truckee Basin Water Control Manual to improve future operations.","The work considered modernized guide curves, extended hydrologic data, forecast-informed operations, changed flood-flow targets, and redistributed flood space.","This is contemporary evidence that aging authorized rules can constrain adaptation and that operators will fund models and deviation studies, although it does not document stale copies remaining executable."]},{"source_id":"S7","title":"NIST SP 800-128: Guide for Security-Focused Configuration Management of Information Systems","publisher":"National Institute of Standards and Technology","url":"https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/128/upd1/final","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"2019-10-10","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["Configuration management and continuous monitoring are established methods for controlling and monitoring system configurations.","The underlying publication describes formal request, impact analysis, testing, approval, implementation, verification, baseline retention, and rollback practices.","These practices are close prior art for controlling deployed parameter and model changes but do not adjudicate water-law authority or drought-rule semantics."]},{"source_id":"S8","title":"NIST SP 1339: OT Backup Quick Start Guide","publisher":"National Institute of Standards and Technology","url":"https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/1339/final","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"2026-06-17","accessed_at":"2026-08-03","claims_supported":["Operational-technology backups are important for recovery from reliability and cyber incidents.","Effective OT backup management integrates backups with change management, creates them regularly, tests them, and reviews them during recovery exercises.","This substantially overlaps the proposal's configuration quarantine and restore-drill safety mechanisms, while remaining domain-general."]}],"problem_evidence":{"support":"MODERATE","rationale":"The problem class is visible and consequential: GAO documented undocumented reviews, inconsistent tracking, uncertainty about manuals reflecting actual operations, and organizational-knowledge loss; Santiam reported sporadic reviews and an operational framework that impeded implementation; and Reclamation is still evaluating alternatives to a 1985 operating manual. However, none of the eight sources directly demonstrates the proposal's most specific failure mode—one obsolete drought patch remaining executable because inconsistent copies persist simultaneously in manuals, spreadsheets, models, shift instructions, and control configurations. GAO also reports that USACE implemented central status tracking in 2018, so prevalence after that remedy is unknown.","source_ids":["S1","S5","S6"]},"stakeholder_evidence":{"support":"MODERATE","rationale":"Identifiable adopters and authorizers exist. Santiam Water Control District led and co-funded a drought-plan update with City of Salem support; Reclamation has statutory planning and assistance authority; and USACE regulations identify commanders, water managers, engineers, and dam-safety officers who approve deviations. Expressed need is strong for better review, update, and operational agility, but no source explicitly requests a patch-level cross-system lifecycle register with TTLs, dependency graphs, quarantine, tombstones, and reconstruction drills.","source_ids":["S2","S4","S5","S6"]},"prior_art":{"proximity":"SUBSTANTIAL_COLLISION","closest_analogues":[{"name":"USACE water-control manual and deviation governance","similarity":"Already establishes an authoritative operating manual, periodic review, documented changes, deviation approval and duration, consequence analysis, responsible authorities, and triggers for formal revision after recurrent deviations.","remaining_difference":"It operates mainly at manual or plan level and the reviewed text does not establish per-patch identities spanning every implementation copy, TTL-to-review semantics, executable-versus-evidentiary states, dependency graphs, quarantine, or tombstone resolution.","source_ids":["S2","S3"]},{"name":"USACE centralized manual-status repository created after GAO-16-685","similarity":"Tracks official manuals, review or revision status, dates, and current authoritative copies—directly overlapping inventory, identity, currency, and stale-status functions.","remaining_difference":"Public evidence does not show patch-level reconciliation against spreadsheets, models, shift instructions, or production parameter exports, nor dependency-gated retirement.","source_ids":["S1","S3"]},{"name":"NIST configuration change control and retained baselines","similarity":"Provides established change-request, impact-analysis, testing, approval, monitoring, prior-baseline retention, and rollback practices for information-system configurations.","remaining_difference":"It does not resolve the legal or ecological authority of drought directives or reconcile semantic rule identity between documentary and operational representations.","source_ids":["S7"]},{"name":"NIST OT backup and recovery exercises","similarity":"Established practice integrates OT backups with change management and requires testing and recovery exercises, overlapping quarantine, restore, and simulation concepts.","remaining_difference":"It tests technical recoverability rather than whether a historical water decision can be reconstructed with its authority, assumptions, inputs, and downstream commitments.","source_ids":["S8"]},{"name":"Periodic drought-plan update and reservoir-operation alternative studies","similarity":"Named water operators already conduct periodic plan updates, stakeholder review, hydrologic-model comparison, and evaluation of alternative operating rules.","remaining_difference":"These are plan-revision projects rather than continuous lifecycle control over individual temporary patches and their distributed implementations.","source_ids":["S5","S6"]}],"distinctive_claim_remaining":"Within one temporary drought-rule family, adding a patch-level identity and state layer across authoritative documents and non-authoritative implementation copies—where TTL only blocks unreviewed reuse, retirement requires adjudicated inbound-dependency checks, executable removal is separated from evidentiary retention, and surviving references resolve through successor tombstones—will identify more materially inconsistent or ambiguously executable patches than existing manual-review plus ordinary configuration-management practice, without increasing unauthorized production changes or unexplained non-production simulation differences.","confidence":"HIGH"},"implementation_evidence":{"support":"MODERATE","rationale":"The constituent methods are technically credible: official repositories and change records, formal deviation workflows, configuration baselines and rollback, and tested OT backups are established. A read-only registry and isolated simulation are implementable without production access. The unresolved difficulty is empirical and organizational: rule identity across heterogeneous artifacts, completeness of dependency discovery, access to restricted control exports, representation of conflicting authorities, and prevention of quarantine reintroduction have not been demonstrated in a real operator workflow. Legal authority remains with existing officials; the tool cannot itself activate, renew, supersede, or retire a directive.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S7","S8"]},"scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":4,"rationale":"Reservoir release rules affect flood risk, water supply, hydropower, environmental flows, and public safety; authoritative sources show that stale plans can prevent operations from reflecting current conditions. Exact attributable harm from stale distributed patches is not quantified.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S6"]},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":4,"rationale":"Water districts, a city, Reclamation, and USACE have committed authority, staff, studies, and funds to drought-plan and operating-rule updates, though not specifically to the full proposed register.","source_ids":["S4","S5","S6"]},"incremental_advantage":{"score":2,"rationale":"Patch-level cross-location reconciliation could improve granularity, but authoritative-plan tracking, documented deviations, formal change control, rollback, and recovery testing already cover much of the mechanism set.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S7","S8"]},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"The narrow integration of water-rule authority with distributed implementation copies and dependency-gated executable retirement was not found in the bounded search. Its parts are established, and world novelty remains unmeasured.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S7","S8"]},"technical_implementability":{"score":4,"rationale":"A read-only registry, artifact comparison, configuration baselines, quarantined copies, and isolated recovery tests use mature methods. Semantic identity and hidden dependencies are the principal unresolved technical risks.","source_ids":["S3","S7","S8"]},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"Named officials and organizations can authorize review and controlled changes, but multiple project, legal, permit, environmental, and dam-safety authorities may constrain a uniform lifecycle state.","source_ids":["S2","S4","S5"]},"evidence_readiness":{"score":2,"rationale":"External sources support the broad problem and mature components, but the exact distributed-patch prevalence, comparator performance, dependency recall, operator usability, and safety outcomes require proprietary artifacts and partnered testing.","source_ids":["S1","S5","S7"]},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":4,"rationale":"Non-production quarantine, retained baselines, and tested recovery paths could reduce the consequences of mistaken retirement; these safeguards align with established configuration and OT recovery practice.","source_ids":["S7","S8"]},"scalability":{"score":3,"rationale":"The schema and workflow could transfer between rule families, but each deployment requires local authority mapping, semantic reconciliation, restricted-system access, dependency adjudication, and model validation.","source_ids":["S2","S5","S7"]}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Four-to-eight-week shadow study for one rule family: secure workspace, 30–60 artifacts or exports, two qualified reviewers, adjudication, one baseline-versus-register comparison, and one isolated simulation scenario.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["No production write access or new control-system connector.","Roughly 200–500 combined staff and specialist hours.","The 2022 North Santiam Phase I budget of $8,519.50 and $50,000 total two-year plan-update resources are only adjacent cost anchors.","Existing non-production model and approved configuration exports are available."],"source_ids":["S5"]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Design the governed data model, access controls, authority and retention matrix, artifact-ingestion adapters, reviewer workflow, audit logging, quarantine procedure, and initial rule-family migration.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["One operator and one bounded rule family.","Custom implementation using existing document, model, and configuration systems.","Legal, compliance, hydrology, operations, and OT-security review are required.","No replacement of the official water-control repository or production-control platform."],"source_ids":["S2","S3","S5","S7"]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"250K_TO_1M","scope":"Production-adjacent rollout across several repositories and operational teams, including validated read-only connectors, role-based access, dependency checks, non-production simulation, training, incident procedures, and independent safety or authority review.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Deployment remains advisory and cannot directly alter releases or production configurations.","Restricted infrastructure information requires secure hosting and audit controls.","Multiple rule representations and model interfaces need reconciliation.","Formal change approval remains in existing USACE or operator workflows."],"source_ids":["S2","S3","S7","S8"]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Lifecycle stewardship, periodic reconciliation, reviewer time, connector maintenance, access reviews, archive or restore drills, training, and annual safety and authority audit for a limited operator deployment.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Approximately 0.5–1.5 specialist FTE-equivalents plus hydrologist, compliance, and OT participation.","Quarterly reconciliation and annual restore or simulation drill.","Existing archive and non-production modeling infrastructure is reused."],"source_ids":["S5","S7","S8"]}},"verified_pipeline_gates":{"externally_supported_problem":{"status":"YES","reason":"GAO directly documented review, tracking, and currency failures in reservoir operating manuals; current operator materials show continuing demand for periodic updates and modernized rules. Exact patch-level prevalence remains unmeasured but does not negate the supported problem class.","source_ids":["S1","S5","S6"]},"externally_credible_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"Santiam Water Control District and City of Salem are named planning participants and funders; Reclamation has statutory planning authority; USACE regulations identify deviation approvers and operational roles.","source_ids":["S2","S4","S5"]},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"The remaining claim compares patch-level cross-location lifecycle control against existing manual review plus configuration management using measurable discovery, consistency, safety, and simulation outcomes.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S7","S8"]},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"One rule family, a fixed artifact set, two reviewers, an adjudicated reference set, an existing-practice comparator, and one isolated simulation can be completed without production modification.","source_ids":["S5","S7","S8"]},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"YES","reason":"The evidence step is read-only and non-production; TTL has no actuation authority, qualified officials retain all activation and retirement decisions, and the test halts on uncertain live authority or restricted artifacts. Production adoption would require a new gate review.","source_ids":["S2","S4","S7","S8"]},"credible_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"The cost bands have explicit scope and one adjacent operator budget, but no direct pricing or labor evidence exists for secure cross-repository connectors, semantic dependency mapping, or production-adjacent validation.","source_ids":["S5"]}},"next_evidence_step":"Partner with one reservoir or water-supply operator and freeze a 30–60-artifact corpus for one drought-stage release or pumping rule family: approved plans and orders, superseded directives, runbook excerpts, model rules, spreadsheets, and read-only configuration exports. First, two qualified reviewers independently use the operator's existing manual-review/configuration process; after washout, use the proposed shadow register in randomized order. An adjudication panel with operations, hydrology, compliance, and OT representation establishes the reference patch identities, authority intervals, lifecycle states, successors, and known dependencies. Compare recall and precision for materially inconsistent or ambiguously executable patches, reviewer agreement, review time, unresolved dependencies, and prohibited-access events. Then simulate the current adjudicated baseline and one proposed retirement in an isolated model, comparing outputs and reconstruction completeness. Advance only if the register improves material-issue recall by at least 20 percentage points without worse precision, achieves at least 0.80 inter-reviewer agreement on patch identity/state, resolves at least 90% of adjudicated inbound dependencies, produces no unexplained material output changes, causes no production writes or restricted-data exposure, and no reviewer treats TTL expiry as authority to alter operations. Falsify the problem if adjudication finds no sequential patch stack or ambiguous executable copy; falsify the intervention if existing practice performs equivalently, dependency completeness cannot reach 90%, simulation changes remain unexplained, or any authority/safety boundary is breached.","blocking_evidence":["No direct prevalence estimate for obsolete or ambiguously executable drought-rule patches across documents, models, spreadsheets, shift instructions, and control configurations.","No field comparison against the post-2018 USACE centralized repository and current manual-review practice.","No evidence that reviewers can reliably resolve patch identity, authority intervals, lifecycle states, and successors.","No measured recall for informal, external, dynamically referenced, or otherwise hidden dependencies.","No demonstrated safe quarantine boundary preventing production reintroduction.","No operator-specific legal determination covering permits, settlements, records retention, legal holds, public-records duties, and restricted infrastructure information.","No system inventory, connector estimate, labor rate, or integration quote sufficient to validate startup, launch, and recurring costs.","No realized impact, market-size, world-novelty, patentability, or freedom-to-operate evidence."],"research_disposition":"PARTNERED_RESEARCH_PROGRAM","world_novelty_boundary":"This bounded search found substantial collision with USACE manual/deviation governance, its centralized status repository, established configuration change control, retained baselines, rollback, and OT recovery testing. It did not find direct public evidence of the full water-specific patch-level combination across authoritative and executable locations. That absence is not a world-novelty finding. World novelty, patentability, freedom to operate, market size, and realized impact remain unmeasured.","arm":"COMPLETE_PROPOSAL_PORTFOLIO","candidate_version":0,"controller_recommendation":{"action":"STOP_EMPIRICAL_RESEARCH_NEEDED","repairable":false,"material_progress_observed":true,"progress_targets":["Secure a reservoir or water-supply operator willing to provide a bounded, read-only artifact corpus and qualified reviewers.","Measure exact problem prevalence and severity after accounting for existing official repositories and manual-review controls.","Run the registered-workflow versus existing-practice comparison with prespecified discovery, agreement, time, and safety thresholds.","Demonstrate dependency recall and unexplained-output bounds in an isolated retirement simulation.","Obtain operator counsel and dam-safety or compliance sign-off on lifecycle-state meanings, access, retention, and authority boundaries.","Produce a system inventory and bottom-up labor, connector, hosting, security, and recurring-review estimate."],"reason":"Bounded web research supports the broad problem, credible adopters, mature technical components, and a narrow testable contrast, while also revealing substantial prior-art overlap. The decisive remaining questions require proprietary operational artifacts, qualified human adjudication, and non-production simulation rather than additional web search. Under the required controller rule, that necessitates STOP_EMPIRICAL_RESEARCH_NEEDED with repairable set to false."},"proposal_index":4}