7852

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7852
• Author: Bolin, J. H.
• Title: Of Razorbacks and Reservoirs
• USFW Year: 1993
• USFW - Doc Type: The Endangered Species Act's Protection of Endangered Colorado River Basin Fish
• Copyright Material: YES

EW

[Vol. 11

ice of a species
lief. "9

ooth razorbacks
cans and early
lercially fished
'oday, however,
,12 although all
rush, for exam-
.mily ill North
er fish, reaches
lograms.13 The
er. None of the
marked. They
oflittle interest

, a complex and
It by the many
River basin.14
: was the dams'
! basin's rivers.
!rs peak in the
ains and main-
e year.16 Flows
ner and winter
3t, and flows at
in free-flowing

ry of the Razorback
1,307-08; Harold M.
in BATTLE AGAINST

ing Gorge Opinion,
L24.

~ at a single location
HYDROGEOLOGY 37

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OF RAZORBACKS..4...\, ,b'SERVOIRS

39

river systemsP In addition, the v ;,\\'r released into the ba-
sin's rivers from its many reservoirs alters the rivers' natural
temperature and sediment transport rates.18 The endan-
gered river fishes' spawning, migration, and other behaviors
are keyed to many distinct and poorly understood tempera-
ture, flow, and chemical clues related to the natural
hydrograph.19 The alteration of the Colorado River Basin riv-
ers' hydrographs has thus disrupted almost every phase of
the fishes' life cycle.

The river fish have lost spawning and living habitat di-
rectly through the flooding of many river reaches to make
reservoirs.20 Dams and reservoirs also block fish migration
routes, interfering with spawning and cutting off previously
occupied habitats. Finally, non-native fishes that have been
introduced accidentally or intentionally into the basin's wa-
ters - sixty-seven specIes as of 198921 - prey on the endan-
gered river fish and compete with them for food and
habitat.22

The destruction and alteration of riverine habitats
caused by reclamation projects such as Flaming Gorge was a
product of both conventional wisdom and western water law.
Under the doctrine of "prior appropriation" that governs
water use in the west, water left in natural watercourses is a
wasted resource. Under this regime, water rights are
granted according to the order in which appropriators put
water to a "beneficial use," and are retained so long as that
beneficial use continues.23 The practice developed among
miners who established a system of rough justice in which
the first person who used water from a stream retained that
right against subsequent users; a practice later extended to

17. Flaming Gorge Opinion, supra note 6, at 5.
18. Wydoski & Hamill, supra note 2, at 124.
19. See Flaming Gorge Opinion, supra note 6, at 8; 12-13 (squawfish); 17-18
(humpback); 19 (bonytail); 20-21 (razorback).
20. Wydoski & Hamill, supra note 2, at 126.
21. Rolston, supra note 8, at 105.
22. Wydoski & Hamill, supra note 2, at 124, 126.
23. See, e.g., Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. Colorado Water
Conservation Bd., 594 P.2d 570, 572 (Colo. 1979).

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