Problems with a Two-State Agreement

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• A two-state CA would reduce the amount of water available for species needs by at least 20%. Conservation groups and Interior have already compromised substantially from the 417,000 acre feet of water needed. To reduce the current Program goal even further, without assurance that the difference would be met by Colorado projects, would put the species even more at risk. • A two-state CA at a 60°Io funding level would mean that only two habitat complexes could be obtained, versus four under the Proposed Program. • The Integrated Research and Monitoring Plan could not provide the information needed to assess the results of the Program and to support adaptive management strategies at a 60°Io funding level. • The substantial cut in the Administration budget likely required under a two- state scenario would leave the Program short of resources to adequately manage the land, water, and other Program assets. • Even if the shortfalls above could be addressed, overall, the budget for a two- state CA doesn't pencil out. The trade-offs would be further gutting already inadequate budgets for critical Program components, or a substantial increase in the funding commitment needed from Nebraska, Wyoming, and Interior. Likelihood of Further Delay The current Proposed Program contemplated in the Cooperative Agreement has taken nearly six years to negotiate, and still isn't done. Add the time it took to negotiate the CA itself under the original Memorandum Of Understanding and we are at almost a decade. Re-negotiating a two-state Proposed Program that is substantially different than the current version could result in further substantial delays in the process. Even assuming the current Proposed Program remains largely as written, the process of Colorado leaving the CA, the other two states and federal government agreeing on a new two-state CA, backing out Colorado-specific provisions from the Proposed Program and related documents, and re-assessing and re-writing the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and Draft Biological Opinion (DBO) would result in a substantial delay in the process. It seems extremely unlikely that the current timeline (calling for a DEIS and DBO release this Fall) could be met. That, in turn, would seriously jeopardize the Interior Department goal of issuing a Final EIS and BO, and a final Record of Decision (ROD), by the end of calendar year 2004. Delivering the Water Should Colorado projects `go it alone' through a Section 7 consultation2, mitigation for those projects presumably would include some replacement water intended 2 Our assessment is that the logical result of Colorado pulling out of the three-state Cooperative Agreement would be that sponsors of Colorado projects would each be responsible for their own Section 7 consultation. There would be no logic to a separate one-state Colorado/FWS agreement, because Colorado is very unlikely to get a better deal alone than through the three-state agreement. Denver Water needs a relatively quick resolution of its commitment to mitigate its new reuse project, making it unlikely it could wait for the negotiation of a Colorado-FWS one-state CA. The advantage to Colorado state government of the consultation option is that each water project's sponsor, rather than state coffers, would be responsible Draft - June 3 version - Draft