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STATE OF COLORADO Bill Owens, Governor DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES ~ DQVISION OFEWILDLIFE Russell George, Director 6060 Broadway Denver, Colorado 80216 Telephone: (303)297-1192 10 December 2001 Mr. Dan Merriman Mr. Mark Uppendahl Colorado Water Conservation Board Stream and Lake Protection Section 1313 Sherman Street, Suite 721 Denver, Colorado 80203 Subj: CDOW Instream Flow Recommendations for Eider Creek Dear Dan and Mark: c,°ti°~°o b ~, y sfo~ t7F ~yq For [~ldlafe- ForPeople The purpose of this letter is to officially transmit the Colorado Division of Wildlife's Instream flow recommendations for Eider Creek in San Miguel County. The reach of stream covered by this flow recommendation is from the headwaters to the confluence with the San Miguel River, a distance of approximately 2.8 rrtiles. In 1996, a group of water users in the San Miguel basin convened a series of facilitated meetings to discuss a number of water resource related issues that the group collectively was facing. This group identified itself as the San Miguel Basin Stakeholders • Group. One of [he initiatives that emerged from these meetings was a collective desire to have Instream flows quantified for dte tributary streams of the San Miguel River not currently protected with a CWCB instteam flow water right. Both the CWCB and the CDOW participated in these meetings. Ken Torp, the facilitator for the stakeholders goup, sent a letter to the CWCB in 1996 requesting the CWCB to initiate Instream flow quantification on the tributary streams. About that same time in history, another group was forming; this group eventually became the San Miguel Watershed Coalition. The watershed coalition held a series of community meetings ut the basin where agencies and members of the public identified issues that were facing the basin as a whole. Foe each issue, wherever possible, goals, objectives, and strategies were developed to deal specifically with the issues. The watershed coalition eventually produced a report, The San Miguel Watershed Plan. The watershed plan identified Instream flow protection for the San Miguel River and its tributaries as a high priority issue. Like the stakeholders group, the CWCB and the CDOW were both heavily involved in all of the meetings. As a direct result of these two independent events, the San Miguel River and its tributaries became high priority areas for Instream flow protection for both the CDOW and the Bureau of Land Management. BLM was heavily involved th the watershed coalition effort. Starting th 1996, BLM, CWCB, and the CDOW initiated a comprehensive effort of quantifying instteam flows m the San Miguel River basin. The field effort alone for this task took several years. Due to the number of potential stream segments, the number of concerned groups involved, and the overall complexity of the water resource issues in the San Miguel basin, it has take us nearly five years to complete the task. During this time period, we have spent a considerable amount of effort meeting with concerned groups, communities, water users, county commissioners, and the general public in an effort to gain a fair amount of comfort and support for the Instream flow recommendations. These flow recommendations are a culmination of a five year effort involving many agencies of the federal, state, and local governments. In the fall of 1996, CDOW, with the assistance of the CWCB staff, collected stream cross section information, natural environment data, and other data needed to quantify Instream flow needs for Eider Creek. The stream cross section data was analyzed using the R2CROSS program. The R2CROSS output was examined using the methods described in Nehring (1979) and Espegren (1996). • Natural Environment Studies: Eider Creek was sampled using standard electrofishing equipment approximately 1 mile above the confluence with the San Miguel River. The aquatic sampling sununary (on the field data sheet) shows that a self sustaining brook DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, Greg E. Walcher, Executive Director W ILDLIFE COMMISSION, Rick Enstrom, Chair • Robert Shoemaker, Vice-Chair • Marianna Raftopoulos, Secretary Members, Bernard Black • Tom Burke • Philip James • Bmd Phelps • Olive Valdez Ex-Officio Members, Greg E. Walcher and Don Ament