9508

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9508
• Author: Valdez, R. A. and P. Nelson.
• Title: Green River Subbasin Floodplain Management Plan.
• USFW Year: 2004.
• USFW - Doc Type: Lakewood, Colorado.
• Copyright Material: NO

2.0 Planning And Development

2-1

April 2004

2.0 PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

The Recovery Program was initiated under a 15-year Cooperative Agreement dated
September 29, 1987 (U.S. Department ofthe Interior 1987; Wydoski and Hamill 1991; Evans
1993). The program functions under the general principles of adaptive management and consists
of seven program elements (Box 1). In 1992, the Recovery Program initiated an inventory of
upper basin bottomlands (i.e., floodplains) to guide acquisition and restoration activities under
the Habitat Restoration element (Irving and
Burdick 1995). Capital funds became
available through the Bureau of Reclamation
(Reclamation) beginning in 1993 for
floodplain restoration. A Fiscal Year (FY) '93
proposal for a Habitat Enhancement
Implementation Program was submitted by
Reclamation for $230,000 (Johnston 1992).
The proposal was revised and renamed for
FY'94 as the Habitat Enhancement Project-
Flooded Bottomlands, and was submitted for
$1,046,000 (Nelson and Soker 2002). Total
out-of-year costs in that proposal were
projected at $9,920,000 through 2003, the year
the Recovery Program was scheduled to end.
Project activities included acquisition of
property easements for management by the
Recovery Program and redesign and construction of floodplains to enhance fish habitat. On
October 30,2000, Public Law 106-392 was signed by Congress authorizing up to $46 million of
congressional appropriations for the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program
and the San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program. This legislation extended the
Recovery Program through 2011, but did not specifically allocate capital construction funds for
the Habitat Enhancement Project.

2.1 Planning

Elements of the Recovery Program

1.
2.
3.

Instream Flow Protection;
Habitat Restoration;
Reduction of Nonnative Fish and
Sportfishing hnpacts;
Propagation and Genetics
Management;
Research, Monitoring, and Data
Management;
Information and Education; and
Program Management.

4.

5.

6.
7.

From 1992 through 2002, the Recovery Program inventoried floodplains in the Upper
Colorado River Basin (Irving and Burdick 1995; Irving and Day 1996; Bell [undated]; Bell et al.
1998; Cluer and Hammack 1999). Available floodplain sites were identified and by November,
2002, easements for access and restoration by the Recovery Program were acquired on 13 private
property sites in the upper basin totaling 1,087.2 acres of land at a cost of $2,117,400 (Nelson
and Soker 2002). These included five easements on three floodplain sites in the Green River
Subbasin for a total of 553 acres at a cost of $191 ,850. An additional easement on 455.1 acres of
land (about 330 acres of floodplain) was acquired in 2003 for Thunder Ranch in the Green River

j