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backwater habitat prior to reaching Lake Powell. A general description of eac:h of the two project sites follows. e Ouray National Wildlife Refuge On June 28, 1869 the Powell expedition entered the Ouray reach of river. In his log, he recorded (Powell, 1895): "To-d.d) the scenery on either side of the river is much the same as that of yesterday, except that two or three lakes are discovered, lying in the valley to the west." He continued: "A little above the mouth of the Uinta, on the west side of the Green, there is a lake of several thousand acres. We carry our boat across the divide between this and the river, have a row on its quiet waters, and succeed in shooting several ducks. " The Uinta River is now referred to as the Duchesne River and the divide is a natural levee that separated the river and the flooded bottomlands along most of this reach. The lake e Powell boated in was probably the flooded bottomlands just upstream of the Ouray Bridge. This excerpt reveals the historical nature of the flooded bottomlands in this reach. Photo 1 of the 1984 floods shows a glimpse of what Powell may have seen when he climbed nearby cliffs to view the area and illustrates the potential for creating vast flooded bottomlands in this reach of the Green River. The Green River in the Ouray study reach is a meandering river flowing through a wide valley with an extensive floodplain bounded by sandstone bluffs on the east and west. The study reach is typical of the river channel between the Jensen gage and the Duchesne River. From downstream to upstream, the reach begins at the Ouray bridge, approximately river mile 248 upstream of the confluence with the Colorado River, and consists of floodplain bottomland adjacent to 17 miles of the Green River. This reach encompasses the low-lying floodplain areas referred to as Old Charley Wash, Sheppards Bottom, Wyasket Bottom, Leota Bottom, Johnson Bottom and a portion of Brennan Bottom. These bottomland areas are relatively flat, broad floodplains which the river has flooded and reworked over geologic time. In addition to the bottomlands, prominent features in the valley are the Duchesne and White River confluences with the Green River in close proximity downstream of the Ouray bridge and the Uinta Formation cliffs which define the eastern and western extent of the valley and confine the meander pattern. The present location of the river channel is controlled, in part, by the geology. At several locations, the channel flows against the cliffs. Except for man-made restrictions such as the Ouray bridge and levees, the Green River is free to migrate across the one to two mile e 4