9377 (2) - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

I 1 SUMMARY OF COMMENTS ON COLORADO RIVER ENDANGERED FISH RECOVERY PROGRAM Daniel F. Luecke Environmental Defense Fund Boulder, Colorado Background Perhaps there is no one place where the Endangered Species Act is seen as so great a threat to development as it is in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Here the history of conflict between water interests and those concerned with the protection of the river's endangered fish (Colorado River squawfish, humpback and bonytail chubs, and razorback sucker) is long and acrimonious. The conflict first boiled over in a lawsuit filed in the late 70's by the Colorado River Water Conservation District, the agency charged with promoting water development in 15'countries on Colorado's western slope, against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency responsible for protecting the fish. The district challenged the listing of the Colorado squawfish and humpback chub as endangered on the grounds that it could not be shown that a number of water projects sponsored by the district would jeopardize these fish. The district also alleged that the obstructionist attitude of the Service was damaging valuable property rights and limiting economic development. While this lawsuit was settled (though only after many charges and counter charges), the conflict flared again in 1983 when the Service proposed a number of minimum stream flow standards throughout the upper basin which the water developers thought could not be supported scientifically, and which they argued would abrogate water rights, jeopardize compact entitlements and hobble economic development in the basin. These tensions in the Colorado were sharpened by litigation in the South Platte River Basin over the Grayrocks and Wildcat reservoirs. While challenging the Service in court, western water developers also mounted several unsuccessful campaigns to weaken the Endangered Species Act legislatively. But by the mid-801s, all parties to the conflict -- the responsible federal and state agencies, water developers, and the environmental community -- were willing to try something different, to sit down and see if a more cooperative approach could be developed. Subsequent negotiations resulted in the formalization of an inter-agency program for the recovery of the endangered fish designed to accommodate both environmental and water development concerns. A central feature of the program was the establishment of habitat needs of the fish in an open and scientific forum as the basis for the purchase or acquisition by