8020

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 8020
• Author: Horak, G. C.
• Title: Proceedings of the Symposium on Mitigating Developmental Impacts on Fish and Wildlife.
• USFW Year: 1979.
• USFW - Doc Type: March 1979.
• Copyright Material: NO

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their observations are often casual. Preferred documentary evidence would
include frequency with which minimum flow requirements have been met, reservoir
pool limits violated, flow fluctuation restrictions violated, and other non-
financial measures of implementation.
For one class of these measures, minimum flow requirements, the compli-
ance of 30 flows agreed-to by the sponsoring agencies has been documented,
usually on the basis of U.S. Geological Survey streamflow gaging records (6).
A flow was considered to have been violated if more than 5% of the daily aver-
age flows (18 days a year) were below the level of the flow agreement. Only
two-thirds of the agreed-to flows complied with this criterion. The frequency'
of these violations range from 22 days a year to 172 days a year with an aver-
age frequence of 85 days a year.
Since 1968, the agreed-to flow below Mason Dam (Baker Project) has been
violated 39% of the time. This project illustrates the lack of enforcement
where an abundant flow was requested to re-establ ish a trout fishery as well
as the ineffectiveness of an instream flow agreement containing undefined
terms, such as "somewhat lower flow" and "short water years." The Fish and
Wildlife Service first offered an instream flow recommendation in 1951 to
the sponsoring agency, which was not accepted until 1960. At that time, the
FWS agreed to a flow which could fall below the recommended flow in short
water years. There was a lag of 10 years between the time of the FWS report
and the sponsoring agency's acceptance of a modified recommendation, because
it probably considered the flow to be the best obtainable for fish and wildlife.
Additionally, the sponsoring agency and the irrigation district both
readily accepted the recommendation with the knowledge that there is no sys-
tematic monitoring by fish and wildlife interests. Moreover, there are no
penalties for violations, even if discovered. In fact, the irrigation dis-
trict has repeatedly reported releasing the agreed-to flow to the sponsoring
agency, even though United States Geological Survey gage records reveal
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