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<br />. <br /> <br />Work has started on the Colorado River Coordinated Facilities Study to look at <br />water facilities in the basin and options for managing the facilities to provide <br />additional water for endangered fish recovery, A consultant has been selected, and <br />organizational meetings have begun, <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Peer review of the synthesis report to be used in preparing a new biological opinion <br />on Flaming Gorge operations is completed (8 of 9 peer reviewers responded), and <br />the report is being revised by the Flaming Gorge Technical Integration Team, A <br />revised draft will be submitted to the Biology Committee for their review and <br />approval by April 1999, <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />A draft of the Aspinall synthesis report is scheduled for completion by the end of <br />April 1999 and will be circulated for internal review by the cooperating researchers <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Biological data collected in 1998 under the study to assess and refine in stream flow <br />needs of fishes in the Duchesne River resulted in a better understanding of the <br />distribution, relative abundance, and habitat use of native and nonnative fishes; work <br />continues in 1999, Work on a model that will be used to identifY possible <br />coordinated operations of Duchesne River reservoirs to provide additional water for <br />the endangered fishes has started; initial results indicate that more time and effort <br />than initially anticipated will be required to complete this task, <br /> <br />Section 7 Consultation <br /> <br />Goal: To allow water development to proceed in the Upper Colorado River Basin in <br />compliance with the ESA <br /> <br />Status: . <br /> <br />The draft biological opinion for the I 5-Mile Reach on historic and new <br />depletions was released on March 5, 1999, Copies of the draft opinion were <br />made available to the Management Committee, Comments on the draft <br />biological opinion are due in April. The next meeting of the I5-Mile Reach <br />workgroup is May 13, 1999, A date for finalizing the biological opinion will <br />be determined at that meeting, <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />The draft biological opinion for the High Savery project on the Little Snake River in <br />Wyoming was released December 30, 1998, <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />From 1988 through the end of 1998, the Service consulted on 204 projects with a <br />potential to deplete a total of693,191 afin the Upper Colorado River Basin, of <br />which 59 are historic depleting 570,055 af. Three of these "projects" are blanket <br />consultations for depletions under 100 af, up to 6,000 aftotal, These consultations <br />have covered 307 actual projects depleting a total of 4,798 af. (see Section 7 <br />consultation list). <br /> <br />2 <br />