7912

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7912
• Author: Tennant, D. L.
• Title: Instream Flow Regimens for Fish, Wildlife, Recreation and Related Environmental Resources.
• USFW Year: 1975.
• USFW - Doc Type: Billings, MT.
• Copyright Material: NO

managers often reminded us that there were no legal requirements for

providing any water specifically for the conservation or enhancement

of fish, wildlife, and environmental resources. Water agencies "sell"

.,

their projects by declaring that their operation will moderate the
extreme high and low flows that occur naturally. Just the opposite
was true on ~ of these projects. Our analysis did not include scores
of existing, smaller projects under the programs of the u.s.

Forest Service and the u.s. Soil Conservation Service, most of which

did not recognize or provide any minimum flows for fish, wildlife,

or the environment.

The Montana Method has been used by the FWS while conducting major

comprehensive type studies that required quick, consistent streamflow

recorronendations for fish, wildlife, and the aquatic environment on

numerous streams, covering extensive geographic areas.l, 2, 3, 4, 28

It has also been very useful for prescribing streamflows on large

rivers where data are difficult to obtain using other procedures.

The ~IDntana Method has virtues other than being quick and easy to use.

It assures consistency from stream to stream or state to state. You

always know the portion of the total streamflow requested and will

never get a zero flow recorronendation like some other methods produce

(e.g., use of 7-day or 3-day minimum or historic minimum flow criteria).
In 1970, I evaluated 7-day minimum flow criteria input for the Upper
Missouri, Yellowstone, Kansas, and Platte-Niobrara Sub-Basins of the

Missouri River Basin Comprehensive Study. I found that these criteria
resulted in zero flow in 86 of 305 instances, or about 28% of the time.22
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