WSPC183 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

U02473 A similar opinion is close to being issued on the Yampa, and another is being formulated for the Gunnison. On the biological report supporting flow recommendations for the Green River below Flaming Gorge Dam, the conservation group representatives filed a minority opinion at the Biology Committee, and then abstained at the Management Committee, allowing that report to be approved by a qualified consensus. In all of these cases, the USFWS flow recommendations greatly benefited from the deep involvement and review by the Program committees. In all of these cases, hard questions of implementation, and of whether the flow recommendations as fully or partially implemented would be sufficient under the Endangered Species Act, still remained after such review. Potential Misinterpretations about the Scope and Effect of the Environmental Assessment on the Breach of Floodplain Levees Potential Misinterpretation: The only floodplain inundation needed for recovery is described in the 1998 Environmental Assessment on the Acquisition and Enhancement of Floodplain Habitats (EA) and is limited to the habitat that can be provided by breaching floodplain levees without any change in the existing flood flow regime, Clearly the breaching of floodplain levees without any change in the existing flood flow regime as described in this EA would provide some important floodplain habitat that would contribute to recovery of the listed fishes, but just as clearly this EA did not determine that this habitat was all that was needed for recovery. The EA does offer some estimates of the acreage that flood under existing flows or that could be made to flood at lower flows (3,588 acres on the Colorado River, and 774 acres on the Gunnison), but never determines that this estimated acreage is sufficient for recovery or that the flooding of other acreage by changing the existing flood flow regime would not also contribute to recovery. Instead, the EA is clear that this recovery action must be combined with others, including flow management, to achieve recovery. Potential Misinterpretation: This EA constituted a flow recommendation by the USFWS that the existing flood flow regime. along with the breaching of floodplain levees that was possible on a voluntary basis and given other funding priorities. would provide sufficient floodplain habitat to recover listed fishes. This EA clearly is not a flow recommendation for much of the Upper Colorado River Basin. It does not include the kind of data or analysis found in other flow recommendations, and does purport to determine whether the existing flood flow regime is sufficient for recovery. If it was a flow recommendation, then all Program efforts to define the flows needed for floodplain inundation approved by consensus since 1998 would be misdirected and meaningless. Since 1998, however, the Program has seriously engaged in identifying the changes in existing flood flows needed on the Green River below Flaming Gorge Dam. The final biological report! recommends changes in both the magnitude and duration of flood flows, in clear contrast to the maintenance of the existing regime (compare the flood flows during historic dam operations with the recommended flows in Figures 5,3-5.9). One clear purpose of 1 Muth, et. al. 2000. Flow and Temperature Recommendations for Endangered Fishes in the Green River Downstream of Flaming Gorge Dam. Final Report, Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program Project FG-53. 3