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002471 Attachment Memorandum To: Management Committee From: Robert Wigington Re: Aspinall Flow Report Date: February 22,2001 In hopes of facilitating our consideration of the Aspinall Flow Report at the upcoming Management Committee meeting, I have racked my institutional memory on the role of Program committees in the review of flow recommendations, and tried to address what seems to me to be some misinterpretations about the scope and effect of the Environmental Assessment on our floodplain levee removal project. My findings: The Role of Program Committees in the Review of Flow Recommendations Under the Program's Blue Book (Final Recovery Implementation Program for Endangered Fish Species in the Upper Colorado River Basin, USFWS, September 1987) and the Endangered Species Act, the USFWS is responsible for recommending the flows needed for endangered fish recovery. The USFWS cooperates with all other Program participants on the work plan priorities and funding for developing such flow recommendations, and also turns to the Water, Management and Implementation Committees to address questions of water availability and feasibility and to assess how those recommendations can be implemented (pages 4-2 and 4-3), Under the Program's Lite Blue Book (Organization and Mission, Recovery Implementation Program for Endangered Fish Species in the Upper Colorado River Basin, USFWS, November 1991, revised September 1994), the Biology Committee is charged with evaluating the biological sufficiency of the USFWS flow recommendations (page II-6, 1991). This charge was broadened in the 1994 revision to the evaluation of the effectiveness of all recovery measures (page II-I 0, 1994). No other committee has that responsibility, and no committee is responsible for approving the flow recommendations because that is the responsibility of the USFWS. For example, the Management Committee "direct [ s] the activity of the Biology and other technical committees to ensure that they are addressing priority recovery needs" and "resolve [ s] management issues as they arise" (page II-4, 1994). The Implementation Committee, and by any delegation the Management Committee, "concur[ s] in the prioritized work plan for identifying habitat needs including instream flows, review [ s] the flow recommendations provided by the USFWS, and authorizes the expenditure of funds to secure interests in property to protect those flows" (page II-I, 1994), 1