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.56 PACE ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REVIEW '}o1. 11 but also to those built decades before the Act w;" passed. Professor Tarlock makes this point emphatically: Project operators will argue that there is a distinction be- tween new and existing [water] projects, but this distinc- tion is irrelevant. . .. [T]he Act applies to existing projects as well as to new ones and any other conclusion would frustrate the purpose of the Endangered Species Act.107 Thus, the full array of the ESA's requirements are effective against both new and existing federal projects in the basin. In keeping with section 7's requirements, in 1980 FWS requested that the Bureau of Reclamation (BR) enter into section 7 consultations for its existing projects in the Colo- rado River Basin. lOB These consultations resulted in jeopardy opinions with an RPA requiring releases of water from ex- isting reservoirs to protect endangered fish.l09 Consultations on proposed BR projects in the late 1970s and early 1980s also resulted in jeopardy opinions with RP As requiring re- leases from existing reservoirs to offset depletions. no There is one important exception to this pre-1981 consul- tation pattern: Flaming Gorge Dam. At approximately the same time that consultation began for Flaming Gorge, FWS issued jeopardy opinions for the proposed Strawberry Aqueduct and Collection System, and for the Upalco, Jensen, and Uinta' Projects - all components of the Central Utah Project (CUP). 111 FWS also issued a jeopardy opinion for Flaming Gorge Dam itself. The RP A for each of these jeop- 'f~:.. '. i J" ! ;' ,ii j , ,.1 ..1 r ",iji\ l~~!' '~1" 107. Tarlock. supra note 74, at 27-28 (citations omitted). 108. Memorandum from Regional Director, Region 6, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to Regional Director, Upper Colorado Region Water and Power Re- sources Service (Feb. 27, 1980). 109. Flaming Gorge Opinion, supra note 6, at 1; Wydoski & Hamill, supra note 2, at 126. See also Margot ZaUen, Evolution of ESA Consultations on West- ern Water Projects, 2 NAT. RESOURCES & ENV'T, Fall 1986, 41, 41 (1986). It is unclear if these sources are referring only to consultations for new BR projects, or also to the consultations on existing ones which began in 19$0. The author has found no documentation suggesting that the existing projects involved in the 1980 consultations participated in the RIP or rely on Flaming Gorge reoper- ation for an RPA 110. Flaming Gorge Opinion, supra note 6, at L 11L [d. 1993J ;.- .~, ",.>". ardy opin the benef: sued jeop: San Rafal ing GorgE site of thE as the mE Althc as an RF 1980s, Fy Opinion 1.: ing years: tion, eva "constraiI Aqueduct operation the Flami peating t: projects : fishes' su which FIl Upalco Ul The: opinion \\ stantive < temperat resemble substanti River Flo ing that the relea. available . . . IS ne< Price-Sar river fish 112. [d. 113. [d. f 114. Flan