9398

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9398
• Author: SWCA, I.
• Title: Feasibility Assessment for a Multi-Species Management Program, Lower Colorado River.
• USFW Year: 1994.
• USFW - Doc Type: Salt Lake City.
• Copyright Material: NO

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C. Alternative C: Programmatic Section 7 Consultation Agreements

A Programmatic Section 7 agreement generally addresses procedural matters within the context
of a federal management plan, providing an agreed-upon framework for future Section 7
consultations. The agreement could encompass as little as protocols for data collection and'
timetables for the consultation process, or it could define what constitutes take, adverse
modification of critical habitat, appropriate mitigation, or compensation for one or more types
of projects or activities.

D. Alternatives D-l and D-2: Recovery Implementation Programs

A recovery implementation program (RIP) is a Service-guided, cooperative effort to develop
recovery actions for endangered or threatened species. These recovery efforts typically serve
as components of RP As that result from jeopardy opinions in Section 7 consultations. Sufficient
progress in implementing the RIP may offset jeopardy opinions on projects. A RIP is currently
underway in the Upper Colorado River Basin, and others are being developed for the Platte and
San Juan Rivers.

Two RIP alternatives are considered here: a RIP just for the four endangered fish (D-I), and
a RIP for all threatened and endangered species in the Feasibility Assessment Study Area (D-2).
The Study Area includes the Colorado River, loo-year flood plain, and full-pool elevation of
some reservoirs.

E. Alternatives E-l and E-2: Habitat Conservation Plans

A habitat conservation plan (RCP) is usually developed when a nonfederal project has the
potential to adversely impact listed species, but no federal nexus exists for consultation under
Section 7. An RCP can also serve as an RPA for a federally connected project that has received
a jeopardy opinion as a result of a Section 7 consultation. The RCP process falls under Section
10 of the ESA, and when successfully completed, results in an incidental take permit, or
authorization, to affect listed species in some specified way. The goal of the RCP is not to
recover listed species (as is the goal of a RIP), but to develop a plan that allows some incidental
take of species, and mitigates that take through programs that benefit the species. The RCP

FINAL REPORT

December 20, 1994
Page 4